The Blader, The Assassin, and The Hunter
by HunterCoralson
Summary: What if Shino and Kazuto were friends who gamed together and got trapped together in SAO? This is a story where events from the canon happen slightly differently, but there's an undertone creeping through Aincrad that Kayaba, the Players, and even Cardinal herself are unaware of. Join Kirito, Sinon, and an OC named Isuca as they travel through a world that is unpredictable at best.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Hey! this is my first fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy! I had a few ideas to create a story, so I decided to start writing a KiritoxSinon fic, which there are far to few of in my opinion. I don't own Sword Art Online or any other games that may be mentioned in this fic. Please comment or pm me if you notice any issues or have any suggestions for the story and/or grammar; I don't have a beta tester and I'm certainly not an experienced writer, so I'd appreciate any input or corrections anyone might have. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!**

LEDGER: [Skill name] "Spoken words" _'Thoughts'_ *sound effects* **message**

* * *

I glanced at the girl at the back of the classroom who was keeping her head down, trying her best to not be noticed. I caught a slight flash of light that reflected off of her glasses as she fixed them.

There was a flurry of action in the classroom once the bell rang, cutting off the last few words of the teacher. Almost as if her previous inactivity was a lie, she unobtrusively moved out of her chair, gathering her belongings and slipping out the door before I could even begin to gather my things.

'_It always amazes me that someone can move so quickly but silently, without ever drawing attention.' _It certainly wasn't the first time I'd curiously observed the girl, but as much as I wished to talk to her I was never able to find an opening to initiate a conversation with her.

"Kazuto!" a girl with sunny hair and a ditsy disposition to match ran over to me, almost tripping over a desk in the process. '_Urgh, here we go again. Honestly these girls are an insult to the female gender. I wish they'd have been raised in a way to put something more solid than air between their ears.' _As a few more girls approached, trying to talk to me, I adjusted my previous mental statement. '_No, they don't have air in their heads, it's more like helium.' _

"Kirigaya Kazuto, come up here please. I need to talk to you." A stern male voice called to me from the front of the classroom. Sighing with relief at having an excuse to leave the half-dozen or so ditsy girls trying to talk to me, I approached the teacher at a fast walk.

The middle-aged man gave me a good-natured smirk. "Girls can be quite a problem, can't they, Kazuto." I gave a wry smile in response to his comment. "You're telling me. Thanks for helping me out of that, by the way."

Even though I was probably the most popular guy in school, I had no idea how to deal with people, let alone the alien lifeform known as "high school girls". Another reason why I was unable to approach the solitary girl in the back of the classroom.

"Before you go, I'd like to talk to you about the school database security. We've had several instances where students managed to get into the database, finding private teacher material and the answers for tests." Now it was my turn to smirk as I responded. "You're having issues with students cheating on tests so you give another student administrator access to the school network? Sounds reasonable."

The teacher rolled his eyes at my retort. "You know you're smart enough to ace every test, and I don't doubt that you could ace a test that even the teachers couldn't." I gave a short laugh at that idea. "I'm glad you have confidence in my abilities." I turned around, raising my hand in an informal farewell to the teacher. "I'll get to it after I get home. I'd appreciate it if you could set up remote access before then."

* * *

I sighed in exhaustion as I made my way down the street outside of school. '_It's seriously annoying having everyone you pass, whether you know them or not, greet you and try to start a conversation. No matter how many times it happens I don't think I'll ever get used to it.'_

I tensed up as I heard a faint, but terrified scream coming from somewhere on my left. I couldn't pinpoint the location, but I started running as fast as I could in the general direction of the scream.

Getting closer, I heard voices along with the dull thud of a body hitting the ground. I paled at a certain thought, but then shook my head slightly, dispelling the notion. '_No way someone would be bold enough to commit murder in broad daylight, and so close to a school.' _

As much as I told myself that, I couldn't dispel my paranoia. As I neared the location, I stopped and concentrated. Once I closed my eyes I focused on my hearing, forming a map in my head of the alley just around the corner.

'_Three figures-no, four. All of them girls.' _I was about to dismiss them as harmless until I recalled my cousin. '_Nope, definitely not a good idea to underestimate girls. There are several I know who could wipe the floor with me even if I _don't _underestimate them.' _I pulled out my phone and entered a passcode on a certain app before turning the corner.

"Whoever you are I'd recommend you stop." I spoke in a cold voice as I entered the alley. A horrible picture entered my vision. Three girls standing around a figure huddled on the ground, the girl in the center of the three pointing a black pistol at the figure on the ground.

My breath hitched as I took in the scene, but I relaxed slightly a moment after once I realized the prone figure wasn't bleeding, and I hadn't heard a gunshot; the gun clearly not having a silencer. The girls quickly backed away. "We were having fun, we didn't expect our friend here to be so afraid of guns!" There were many things wrong with that statement, but I didn't bother to press them further, as their trembling voices made it clear that their excuse was clearly just that.

"I'd set down that gun if I were you." I motioned with the phone in my left hand. "This entire event is being streamed to the local police in real time." the girls murmured among themselves before dropping the gun and running away. I sighed in relief, glad that the incident hadn't escalated. "I'm surprised they believed me, it's not exactly the most believable story, even if it is true." I kneeled down next to the huddled lump, placing my hand on their shoulder. "Hey, it's all fine now. They're gone."

On closer inspection I was able to discover that the collapsed person was a girl with relatively short dark hair.. As my hand touched her shoulder I could feel that her body was shuddering with silent sobs. Not knowing what to do, I sat down next to her on the ground, stroking her back and softly murmuring encouraging words.

It was a pretty damn awkward situation for me, especially when the girl pushed herself against me and clutched onto my shirt. I didn't have the heart to push her away, so I let her stay there for the moment. That is, until her body went entirely limp. "Huh, that's a first. A girl fainted on me."

I looked bemusedly at the limp girl who was half resting in my lap. "Guess I don't have another choice." I pulled out my phone, opening my contacts and selecting "mom". A short conversation and a few minutes later, a car pulled up outside the alley. As gently as I could, I picked up the fainted girl, finally realizing that it was the same dark haired girl I'd seen so many times sitting alone at the back of the classroom.

* * *

*clickclickclickclick* the only thing that could be heard in the half dark room was the sound of rapid clicking of a mechanical keyboard as I worked on troubleshooting and patching the flaws in the school network security.

A soft rustling came from the bed next to me as the girl pushed herself clumsily into a sitting position. I glanced at her, my own onyx eyes meeting her brown eyes, slightly blurred from her brief loss of consciousness. "Yo." I gave her a slight smile as I noticed her pupils dilating in fear. "It's alright, let me turn on a lamp now that you're awake."

She visibly relaxed once I turned on the light and she recognized me from her class. "I'm Kirigaya Kazuto, you might've seen me around at school." "Shino, Asada Shino." she responded in a small, slightly embarrassed voice. "Nice to meet you, Kirigaya-san."

I waved my hand lightly. "Please drop the honorifics, call me Kazuto." She gave a small smile at that, and I noticed for a brief moment that this was the first time I'd ever seen her smile, despite noticing her at school so often."in that case, please call me Shino."

Now that we'd gotten introductions out of the way, she became visibly nervous. There could have been a number of reasons for this reaction, but I decided to assuage the one that I supposed was the most prominent. "I don't know what happened back there, but I'm glad I was there to help out. I'm not going to ask anything, but if you want to talk to anyone at any point I'll be glad to listen."

Apparently she had the concern I predicted, as she relaxed again once I had told her that. She opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by a knock at the door. "Onii-chan, is she awake?" "Ah yeah, come in Sugu. She just woke up." My sister walked in, and noticing Shino sitting up in my bed, wiped a fake tear from her eye. "What an innocent child you used to be, Onii-chan, but now you're bringing home strange women and having your way with them in your bed."

Shino's face turned bright red, and by the heat rising up in my cheeks I could feel that I was just as red, if not more red than she was. "SUGU GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!" I turned to Shino, trying to say something to deny the unfounded accusations of my sister, but I was so embarrassed and surprised at her boldness that I could barely make out a single word without stuttering.

Suguha burst into laughter at this sight. "Your EXPRESSION!" at the sight of me wordlessly opening and closing my mouth like a fish, Sinon recovered from her own embarrassment and burst into laughter at the absurd sight.

I sighed in exasperation at my sister before looking at the uncontrollably laughing girl sitting in my bed. "Well at least you two seem like you'll get along." I gestured at the girl standing in the doorway to my room. "miss pervert over there is my sister, Suguha, but you can just call her Sugu like I do."

Recovering from her laughter, Sugu mock glared at me for a moment before smiling at Shino. "Although my _darling_ brother here is unaware of the basic courtesy of letting people decide whether others can call them by their nicknames, it's fine for you to call me Sugu." I rolled my eyes at my sister's aloof behavior.

Shino awkwardly waved her hand at Sugu. "I'm Asada Shino, but it's fine to call me Shino, since you're fine with me calling you Sugu." Suguha smiled at the slightly awkward girl, glad that although she was obviously embarrassed, she was trying her best to be friendly.

Suguha headed out the door, but turned stuck her head back around the corner. "it's 5 you know, I made some food if you two would like some." a sly smile slowly spread across Sugu's face, and I knew something bad was coming. "unless you'd rather continue whatever you were doing on Kazuto's bed~"

"GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!"

To my surprise and amusement, Shino decided to join me in yelling at Sugu.

* * *

**Note: I should hopefully have chapters two and three uploaded by tonight so there's actually a _story_ and not just a variation of a scene that has been written at least a dozen times.**


	2. Chapter 2

LEDGER: [Skill name] "Spoken words" _'Thoughts'_ *sound effects* **message**

* * *

All I ever found out about the incident two months ago with Shino and the two girls in the alley was that Shino had an extreme phobia of guns and that it wasn't the first time those girls had used that weakness against her.

The girls had tried to bully Shino again after that event, but stopped once I showed up. A lot of people were surprised by the odd friendship that popped up between the most popular boy in school (although not popular by choice) and the girl who was rumored to be a murderer.

Seeing her so ostracized was already enough to make me want to be her friend, then on top of that, I helped her get away from bullies, but what made us good, or even best friends was far greater and deeper than anything of the sort I've mentioned so far.

You've probably guessed it already.

* * *

FLASHBACK

Shino and I looked at each other, both of us red all the way to our ears after Sugu's last comment. "be glad you don't have a sister, Shino. It's a hell of a pain."

The reserved girl smiled at that thought. "I don't know about that, it seems like you have a really fun relationship with your sister." I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck in response to the unexpected compliment(?) And gave a vague response.

I was about to suggest that we go downstairs and eat until I saw Shino looking curiously at my monitor next to me. I smirked at her. "Interested in computers at all?"

She turned away in embarrassment at realizing the rudeness of staring at someone's computer. I simply laughed at her reaction. "it's fine, it's not well known, but I'm not exactly trying to keep the fact that I'm a massive geek a secret." she smiled at my response, obviously relieved I hadn't taken offense.

"Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit of a requirement to enjoy computers in one way or another if you're an introvert like us." she joked, trying to stay in the spirit of my previous comment. "Hey, that's awesome! It's not very often I'll see girls who are into computers. What kind of stuff are you into?"

"oh I play some sci-fI games, I'm not really into first-person shooters or anything like that though." "SERIous..ly?" I accidentally started my single word reaction far louder than I intended, abruptly changing the volume midway, ending up with a strangled sounding word and a very taken aback Shino.

I had stood up in my excitement, so I awkwardly leaned back into my chair, scratching the back of my neck. "sorry, it's just not very often I come across a fellow gamer in real life, let alone a girl." there was a brief moment of silence as I recovered from my embarrassment before I responded in kind.

"Uh, I guess I just play fantasy games usually, I'm a big fan of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing game) but I also enjoy MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena) on occasion. Shino nodded, a smile larger than anything I'd seen so far on her face, obviously taking pleasure from being able to talk to someone who shared her hobby.

A loud yell came from downstairs, reminding us that there was food prepared for us. "We better get down there fast, you've seen how bad Sugu is at her best so I'm sure you can guess that you don't want to see her at her worst." I headed toward the door with Shino following me. I was glad to see that she had, at least visibly, recovered from her traumatic episode in the alley.

END FLASHBACK

* * *

"just 5 more minutes Sugu…" I opened my bleary eyes to the sight of a girl poking my cheek. "Hey Kazuto, wake up." "oh hey Shino, fancy meeting you here." I yawned, stretching and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "since you woke me up I assume it's lunch time?" she rolled her eyes and said "no dummy, I'm in bed next to you, waking you up so Sugu doesn't catch us."

I stared for a moment at the girl who was very obviously standing beside my school desk, before sighing and putting my head back on the desk. "damnit, Sugu is really wearing off on you. Two months ago you were a sweet shy girl, and now you're a straight-faced monster who was inspired by a pervert. Just what I need."

The girl resumed poking at my cheek once I set my head back on my desk, getting revenge for all the times I'd done the same to her. "all right, all right, I'm up, I'm up already."

We proceeded to the roof where there were already a handful of students eating lunch, but we ignored them and sat down in our usual spot where we proceeded to discuss strategy for our next mission.

Smiling with pride, I gave my update to the dark-haired girl sitting next to me. "I stayed up scanning until 4 am last night, and it was definitely worth it. I found a wormhole with a small, obviously inexperienced corporation in it. They'll be great targets for tonight. I jumped both of our accounts in, fully fit for combat."

A little over a month ago, Shino got me to play a game called EVE Online. Although it was a space based mmo, which wasn't my favorite, I immediately fell in love with it due to its complicated user interface and incredibly intricate mechanics. I also basically learned the entire game in a week, which Shino is still mad about. For reference, it took her overy six months to get to the knowledge level I'm at right now.

She nodded in assent, agreeing that we'd definitely have a lot of fun later today. Moving on from the topic of our next target, I pulled up an article on my phone and handed it to Shino in excitement. "only one more month! I'm afraid we'll be entirely dropping EVE once _this_ is released!"

She looked at my phone, a look of excitement spreading across her face. "the first TRUE virtual reality game, Sword Art Online. Only one more month until the closed beta, then three more until the official release." she handed my phone back to me before laying on her back and stretching her arm up to the sky.

"it's amazing to think that someone can create a world… I never would have guessed it was possible, it's always been in the realm of fantasy to me." she let out a heartfelt sigh before continuing. "I'm so glad I was born in this age, able to experience this. Aren't you, Kazuto?"

I stretched out on the hard roof next to her before responding. "hell yeah I am, I can't wait until we hear who gets selected for the open beta. I hope we both get in." almost as if on cue, my phone buzzed and I hit the power button to check notifications. An email with the usual "contents hidden" notification appeared on my lock screen.

I laughed, "wouldn't it be great if this was a message saying we both got into the closed beta?" she just lightly punched my shoulder in response. "like that'd happen, dummy. They're only going to be announcing who got in one week before initial launch."

Out of habit I unlocked my phone to check and dismiss the notification, but the name of the sender caught my eye. "Kayaba Akihiko". I stared in shock at the name of the sender. "uhhh Shino? do me a favor. Read this for me to make sure I'm not hallucinating." surprised at my sudden 180 in behavior, she took my phone from me before staring at it in shock.

"no, no way. Someone had to have gotten some email address with that name on it. No way the CEO of Argus would be messaging you." I turned a slightly dry look on her and she looked slightly apologetic at the obvious insult. But I just sighed. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm a skilled programmer and gamer, but nowhere near good enough to catch his notice." Even though that's what I said, I was unable to resist the temptation and opened the email.

**Hello Mr. Kirigaya, my name is Kayaba Akihiko, the CEO of Argus and creator of the Nervegear and Sword Art Online. You're probably quite surprised by seeing this, and wondering about the authenticity of this email, so I'll cut directly to the chase. Would you be willing to participate in the closed beta for Sword Art Online? You have a specific skillset that will help finish development.**

**Kayaba Akihiko**

**Attachments: 3**

I opened the attachments and saw an identity for Kayaba, a document that looked like a contract, and a 13 page document that specified what I would have to do and what compensation I'd receive if I accepted.

"honestly I'm not sure anymore, Shino. After looking at it closely this either has to be an _extremely _well set up scam or actually legit." "you've got to be kidding me!" the girl, who just moments before had been lying completely inert, shot up and snatched my phone from my hand, staring intensely at the email for a good five minutes.

After sitting there and staring at her for a minute, I slowly reached my hand up and poked her cheek, eliciting an adorable squeak of surprise. I gave a small chuckle at the indignation of the girl beside me. "should never lose track of your surroundings, Shi-Shi."

"don't call me that!" She responded with a not so light punch to my shoulder, leaving me ruefully rubbing it. "jeez…" she handed my phone back with a sigh. "That looks perfectly real… it's just hard to believe that the most famous man in the world would email you, asking for your assistance. Even weirder that he'd do it personally, rather than getting someone from his company to contact you."

"Yeah, it's definitely very odd. No way i'm not going to respond to it though; even if it only has the slightest chance of being true, it's a chance that i can't pass up." Shino opened her mouth to respond to my comment, but was cut off by the bell sounding the end of lunch.

Back in my room, i leaned back in my chair, relaxing for a moment before opening the email from Kayaba. I went through various processes and connections to confirm that this email was, indeed, legitimate. After i confirmed that, i opened the second document, the terms and benefits, and perused it for nearly an hour. After analyzing the two sections extensively, this is what i got out of the document:

REQUIREMENTS

1\. You will be required to test your personal real life abilities, primarily _your_ hearing and martial arts.

will be allowed Development Access and required to work on the "Tuning System"; the system that helps sync real life motor control to ingame motor control.

BENEFITS

1\. You will be allowed to create and use a single custom skill (within certain parameters) that may or may not be added to the official game release.

2\. You will receive a single invitation to allow another player into the beta.

There were requirements on amount of gameplay required, required actions, along with monetary benefits, but i dismissed those as unimportant. The important thing was…

I GOT INTO THE BETA!

WITH ADDITIONAL BENEFITS!

* * *

**Note: Sorry this was short, i'll hopefully get up the chapter covering the beta test within a few hours (it should be much longer)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this so far! It took me longer to write this chapter than the previous two chapters combined as this was my first attempt at writing combat (also I took a while to start fixing up the SAO game system)**

**Here's the last chapter for tonight, so hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1 Boss room

*cshhhh* There was a sound reminiscent of glass shattering as a massive kobold holding a talwar burst into millions of iridescent particles with a massive "CONGRATULATIONS!" appearing. I turned around, sheathing the black iron greatsword on my back and high-fived the girl who's support had been instrumental in me finishing off the boss.

"Great job Sinon!" I said to the blue-haired girl I had just high-fived, referring to her by her IGN. (in-game name) She grinned back at me. "You too, Kirito." she punched my shoulder, dropping my hp by 5 points. She laughed as I rubbed my shoulder and remarked how glad I was that you couldn't feel pain in this game.

"What's the LAB?" Sinon looked curiously over my shoulder. I grinned evilly at her as I accepted the drop before she could read what was on the page. "Oh come on Kirito, let me see it!" "weeeeeellllllll maaaaayyyyyyybeeeeeee... " I drug out the words as long as I could until Sinon put a dagger to my throat, snapping to attention the moment that she did. "Yes ma'am, immediately ma'am!" She laughed lightly at my antics as she watched me open my inventory, but once she saw what I equipped, she fell to her knees as an expression of despair covered her features.

I flicked the back of the pure black coat up, admiring the physics engine that made it flutter so realistically. I gave a smug smile to Sinon, bringing up the stat page for it and sending it over for her to see. She entirely ignored the page and just stared at the ground, muttering something about "what the hell Kayaba, black… black… black…" suddenly she lifted her head and yelled "WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYTHING THIS IDIOT GETS HAVE TO BE BLACK!"

She glared balefully at me when I burst into laughter at her despair. I quickly collected myself before she drew her dagger on me again."Woah! Calm down and at least check the stats before you PK me! Once you ignore the fact that it's black like everything else I wear, it's an insanely op item."

She sent one more murderous look at me and my luck before checking the stat page I sent over to her. "Holy crap, That's one hell of a coat!"

Coat of Midnight-Evolution

Defense: 2 HP: 200

Stat Modification: AGI +5

Bonus Option(s): Increases [Hiding] by 50

"Wow, that's good enough that I can almost forgive it for being black." I rolled my eyes at her insistent dislike of my favorite color. '_After all, it's just pure chance that all usable equipment that drops for me is black, right?_' As I had this thought, I had a slightly disconcerting feeling, almost as if someone was watching this and laughing at me.

Dismissing the notion, I poked Sinon's cheek. "Hey, let's go celebrate this! Not only are we the first party to clear the floor 1 boss, we're the smallest party to clear a boss higher than a mini-boss!" Sinon stood up and leaned against me. "I'm up for that, but let's not make it too long, I want to log off and get some rest. Clearing a boss meant for a party of 25+ with a party of two isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world." I started to open my mouth to deny that statement, responding with how I wasn't tired in the slightest, but Sinon cut me off before I could even say a single word. "You don't count, I'm honestly beginning to doubt that you're human. How someone can game for 40 hours straight is entirely beyond me."

I coughed, trying to move the conversation away from the subject of my power-leveling of a few days ago. A thought occurred to me as we walked out of the boss room, heading back to the town nearest the dungeon. "Hey Shino?" she turned to me, curious why I used her real name instead of her IGN, as I usually did when we were in-game. "Want to come over to my house and celebrate IRL instead of celebrating ingame?" the girl walking along next to me faltered in her step for half a second, a faint blush appearing on cheeks. She gave no other response than a small smile and a nod of assent.

* * *

TWO WEEKS LATER

Aincrad Floor 27 Labyrinth

*cshhcshcshcshhhhh* the sounds of mobs shattering into shards filled the air. "DAMNIT KIRITO! REMIND ME AGAIN WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?" an outraged shout filled the small room that was packed with mobs that resembled dwarves and stone golems. "HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO GUESS THAT A TREASURE CHEST WOULD TRIGGER A DEATH TRAP LIKE THIS!"

My HP dropped into the red as a pickaxe struck me. "I SWEAR I'M GOING TO KILL YOU AGAIN IF YOU DIE AND LEAVE ME TO CLEAN UP THIS MESS, KIRITO!" despite the severity of the situation, I chuckled at the eternal spunk of the girl I'd gamed with for the past few months.

I jumped over a pickaxe swung at my knees, simultaneously dodging an overheard strike a golem aimed at my head. *cshcshhh* the sound of another mob shattering rung out across the room as I spun my greatsword into a reverse grip, stabbing the dwarf behind me. In one fluid motion I dropped the sword, dodging several attacks aimed at me by jumping up, lightly planting my feet on the low ceiling, then launching myself at a dwarf near where my sword stuck out of the ground.

A dark golden light glowed around my foot as I lunged toward my target. Several shattering noises rang out almost at the same time as my martial arts skill annihilated its target and Sinon dispatched two dwarves and a golem almost in a single breath.

I picked up my greatsword, taking a stance for a brief moment, letting the system take over and activate the sword skill 'Cyclone'. A massive green blur appeared as the system assist carried my sword in a full circle, killing half a dozen mobs and dealing high damage to another half dozen. "Sinon!" I yelled to get her attention before jumping vertically, aiming my boots at the ceiling again. The dagger-wielding girl made eye contact with me, silently confirming her affirmation of my strategy. We'd fought alongside each other enough, both in other games and in SAO, that we were almost able to hold entire strategy conferences without speaking a single word.

In mid-jump my sword started to glow with a turquoise light. The instant that my feet made contact with the ceiling, the light seemed to explode as I activated the sword skill 'Sonic Leap', slicing two golems into oblivion as I charged at Sinon. A small cloud of dust rose from where I landed. "These graphics and this physics engine never cease to amaze me. So realistic."

The girl who was now standing next to me let out an exasperated sigh. "There is a time and a place to admire the intricacies of this game," Sinon dropped to the ground and rolled backwards as I leaned over her, swinging my sword at her target. "BUT THIS IS NOT EITHER OF THOSE!" she let out an aggravated yell as we smoothly swapped places, our blades simultaneously eliminating the other's target.

"Come on Sinon, you gotta admit this is fun." She let out a snort as her dagger cut through a golem, shattering it into Col and exp. "Yeah, I'm having looooads of fun." I could practically feel the sarcasm dripping from her words. "So much fun that once we get back I'll only kill Argo once, instead of twice."

*kch* I clicked my tongue at my partner's mention of Argo. "just because I'm having fun right now doesn't mean I won't kill that damn rat, I'll bet you she died in this room, which was why she sold this info to us for only 2,500 Col." The small girl's whiskered face popped into my mind as I vowed I'd kill her at least once after we got out of this predicament.

We both dispatched our current targets and knocked back any remaining mob near us. "Finish them off in one go?" I inquired as I felt my back touch the back of the girl behind me. She nodded in assent. "Let's finish this and go kill Argo." I laughed, almost pitying Argo as I knew of Sinon's ability to hold a grudge.

My blade started to glow sky-blue as I reversed my grip on it, sliding my left foot forward and bringing the greatsword up on level with my shoulder, the blade pointing to my right and the edge vertical. I let the system take over as the blade swung outward. As my arm reached a 90 degree angle from my body I deftly flipped my grip on the sword, changing it back to a standard grip. If the initial reversal of the grip began the preparation motion, the second reversal of the grip activated the sword skill 'Tidal Flow'.

The moment my grip returned to normal, the sky blue light that had gathered on the edge of my blade exploded into a pulse that staggered and slowed everything in a 180 degree angle in front of me, which covered all remaining mobs in the room.

Although 'Tidal Flow' was a relatively low level sword skill, the Post-Motion period was extremely long, lasting two seconds. In my two seconds of sword skill induced paralysis I briefly wished that CC (crowd control) sword skills didn't have such a long Post-Motion period, despite knowing how utterly overpowered it would be if they didn't.

In my few moments of contemplation, my partner had drawn 16 relatively cheap daggers from her inventory, holding eight in the gaps between her fingers and carrying eight in a special belt made just for that purpose.

I watched all 8 daggers she was holding began to glow with a white light as she crossed her arms, performing the preparation motion to the sword skill "Icepick Hail', and the burst of white light as the skill was unleashed twice in quick succession.

"Phew," Sinon sighed, both of us recovering from our Post-Motion period at the same time. We both slumped down, I leaning my back against the wall and Sinon sitting next to me and leaning against me. We'd been best friends for several months so physical contact was rarely awkward between us, especially when we were both so tired.

Once we both relaxed I mock glared at her. "No matter how many times I see it, those Specialist assassin type skills are a cheat. Being able launch a single skill multiple times in a row is unfair no matter how you look at it" The girl just sighed and poked my side, causing me to tense up reflexively. She just smirked as she saw my reaction. "It's perfectly fair when you consider that the skills either cost a crap ton to activate or are so weak that several consecutive casts aren't even as strong as one of your skills. Those daggers are only cheap when you consider the cost of a real weapon, 20,000 Col to use a single skill once is just obscene."

I opened my mouth to respond, but closed it as the exhausted girl nuzzled closer into my side. I just smiled and let her stay there.

After five or so minutes of rest I had mostly recovered, but since Sinon was still exhausted I decided to organize my inventory and update my status page. Thankfully the girl was curled up against my left shoulder, leaving my right free to navigate the menu.

15 minutes later I had mostly organized my inventory and had decided that it was time to head back. I was about to rouse Sinon, but a small evil smile spread across my face as I had an idea. Reopening the menu I had just closed, I checked my friends list for a certain player, mentally pumping my fist in the air when I saw where they were.

I closed my menu and shook the girl next to me. "Hey, Sinon, let's get going." She yawned and stretched like a cat. Despite myself, I couldn't help but thinking how adorable she was. I shook my head briefly, banishing the stray thought. "Come on, up you go." I grabbed her hand as I stood up, pulling her to her feet with me.

She yawned and opened her inventory, getting ready to pull out a teleport crystal. "Can we just teleport back? I know it's expensive, but I'm just entirely wasted from that fight." I simply shook my head. "Let's just walk back," I smirked. "I have a special gift for you."

She looked at me slightly confused, but put the crystal back in her inventory nonetheless. And so we began the long trek back to the 27th floor town. To Sinon's surprise, (but not mine) we came across a certain whiskered female player in the field outside of town.

Five minutes later, two players with orange cursors overpowered the guards and walked into the town.

* * *

ONE WEEK LATER

Aincrad Floor 32 Boss room

The now familiar "CONGRATULATIONS!" filled the sky in front of us. The girl standing next to me sheathed her dagger with a fancy flip before lightly punching me in the shoulder and giving me a high-five. I grinned as I checked the LAB which I had received, Sinon immediately withdrawing as she saw the expression on my face.

"Please tell me you're kidding, Kirito. I'm not sure if my sanity can take you getting another black item as a drop." I just grinned evilly at my partner before equipping the massive black greatsword I received, who on seeing that, collapsed on the floor. She started murmuring something, but all I could make out was "black again", "this has got to be rigged", and "I hate you Kayaba"

Grinning in double enjoyment of my new sword and Sinon's reaction, I grabbed her arm and forcibly pulled her to her feet. "Come on, get over the fact that I haven't had a single item that wasn't black drop, and let's go activate the teleport device to the 33rd floor.

The two of us walked, one despondently and one cheerfully, through the doorway and up the staircase that lead to the next floor.

Even though it should have been day by the clock displayed on our HUDs, the 33rd floor was dark, illuminated only by a moon. Wait, two moons? The two moons were so far away and they overlapped, so at a glance it merely looked like there was a single moon in the sky.

The two of us stopped in amazement as we entered the floor as it was so different than anything else we had experienced so far. After standing in amazement and confusion for several seconds, I heard a loud exhale of breath from Sinon. "I've never seen a scene like this…"

Although it may seem like a crime to mention anything relating to the arcane arts in a game so focused on swords, the only word that could even come close to describing the scenery before us is "Magical".

Unlike most floors, the entrance from the floor below came out on a hill, giving a breathtaking view of a dark forest, dotted with shining multicolored lights. I felt a drop of rain against my cheek and noticed for the first time that it was raining lightly. The mysterious but beautiful lights in the forest caught the raindrops, making it seem as if the drops of rain were colored in shades of azure, gold, silver, and a myriad of other colors.

In the far distance the Labyrinth could be seen in the form of a towering stone pillar, surrounded by what looked like a monstrous medieval castle. From our vantage point we could see a clear but winding path that lead through the forest to the castle, along with three smaller villages along the way.

It took a few minutes for me to tear my eyes away from the breathtaking sight of the dimly shimmering forest. Sinon had recovered before I did, working on a surface analysis of what we can expect from this floor. Gathering my wits, I opened my map to check where we were. 'Forest of Darkness'. Ok. that was _really _not helpful.

"I think we can expect a lot of side quests from this floor, almost as many as the 1st floor, in fact." I gave her a questioning glance. Although there were more towns on this floor than usual, it was nothing compared to the 1st floor, which had nearly a dozen towns and villages.

She continued, explaining her train of thought. "This floor has a castle with several outlying villages, so we can reasonably assume that the villages have a subordinate relationship with the castle, which would mean that there will be far more commerce between villages than there was on the 1st floor. This is also the first floor that a castle has appeared on, so we can probably expect a large group of quests to be opened by that.

It took me a few moments to process the mass of info Sinon had just rapidly shot at me, but after taking it in I nodded in assent. "See? This is why you're the strategist and assassin. I'd be able to get some info from the landscape, but not nearly that detailed or reliable." Shino was a very logical person who was good at processing information in her head and coming up with logical conclusions.

Although I was great with programming and computers, I didn't have the sheer mental processing speed that she had.

"Alright then, let's get going. There are only 3 days left of the beta, so let's see if we can clear this floor by then." the girl beside me nodded in assent, and the two of us drew our weapons and ventured into the forest.

* * *

**Note: So I lied, there is going to be one more chapter on the beta that i'll hopefully be able to write and release tomorrow. The 33rd floor is entirely made by me and will (probably) be quite important to the story later on, so i'd like to spend a bit of time on it. Thanks for reading!**

**EDIT: For those wondering how exactly i'm changing the game system, most of that will be explained when Kirito teaches Klein. Also i'll put the descriptions of new sword skills in the Authors note of the chapter they're introduced.**

'Icepick Hail' a low-rank sword skill used with throwing picks or daggers. sends out a storm of 8+ attacks that hit a large AoE. damage depends primarily on the quality of the weapons thrown. Can store up to 3 charges at once. Cooldown period of 5 minutes, doubling for each charge that is stored. Color: white. combo: 1

'Tidal Flow' a low-rank sword skill for greatswords. Creates a pulse that slows and interrupts all actions in a wide AoE. deals small damage at close range and no damage at long range. Color: sky blue. combo: 1


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: Hey all! sorry for the late release, took me longer than expected to build the floor. With no further ado, enjoy the chapter!**

LEDGER: [Skill name] "Spoken words" _'Thoughts'_ *sound effects* **message** 'sword skill' «monster»

* * *

Aincrad Floor 33 Fields

"Hold up a second, Kirito." I turned curiously to the girl who just stopped me. "better re-equip, we don't know what could be waiting for us in there." I nodded in assent, slightly embarrassed that I had almost made the rookie mistake of exploring in gear meant for fighting.

Both of us opened our menus, I equipping an amulet called Eye of Arachne, the LAB from the 27th floor boss, a ring named Host of Shadows that I acquired on the 11th floor that boosted my hiding, and a hood that was literally just named hood and could be bought from any NPC.

I closed my menu, ready to go; having augmented my hiding skill by a total of 175 levels and my detection skill by 200.

Sinon smirked as I took 30 seconds to swap around 3 items while she simply put on a single amulet; the drop from the chest in the death trap on Floor 27. I sighed at the look on her face, knowing what was coming. "Tsk tsk, such a pity that I'm so much luckier than you, Kirito~" I just facepalmed at her teasing tone. "Just because you rolled a 100 and I rolled a 99 doesn't mean you're 'so much luckier than me'." her smirk widened into a grin as she gracefully spun, moving slightly closer to me.

She leaned up against me, putting her head on my shoulder while saying in a taunting manner "Don't you just wish you could have gotten this _magnificent _Pendant of the Night? It adds a shocking 150 levels to both hiding and detection!" at this point she wiped a fake tear from her eye. "And to think, if I hadn't rolled a 100, you would have been the one in the possession of this _magnificent_ item!"

By this time I was mostly used to her teasing concerning the item, but I hit her head with a not-so-gentle karate chop anyway. She rubbed her head in mock indignance. "That hurt! It knocked off 25 HP! What would you have done if that _KILLED _me!" she melodramatically recoiled, as if I had dropped her HP by 95%, not 25 points. I just rolled my eyes at my partner's absurdity and started walking forward. "If that had killed you I would have prayed that pendant dropped."

Sinon pouted at my cold response, but I was too far away to notice. Of course, I knew exactly what her reaction was without even having to look at her.

* * *

*cshh* There was the muffled shattering of a mob as I repulsed yet another ambush. "Phew" I sighed, reflexively wiping my forehead before I remembered that we don't sweat in this game. Whoops. I turned to the girl next to me who was also breathing slightly harder from the exertion. "Boy am I glad you reminded me to swap to hiding/detection gear, this place would have been hell without it." normally I would have gotten a teasing remark in response to this statement, but the would-be offender was focusing too hard to make any snarky comments.

We were unable to let down our guard for the past two hours due to the nigh incessant ambushes from batlike «Terayang» that appeared from all angles. Although they weren't remarkably strong, they attacked in groups ranging from single monster to a swarm of several dozen, and they had a higher hiding skill level than any mob I've seen so far.

*chsh* I killed another mob with a backhand blow from my greatsword, dismissing the drop window without even looking at it. "This floor will be hell for anyone except for large groups or the top players. You'll need a player with detection skill of at least 400 to predict and respond to ambushes. Solo players will want a hiding skill of 500 or more to not be swamped immediately on entering the forest."

The hiding skill didn't just make players harder to find when they activated it, but it also slightly reduced the aggro of all mobs even when the skill wasn't active, allowing players with a high enough hiding skill to avoid most combat without even activating the skill.

The girl following me nodded as she flung three throwing picks simultaneously with a single hand, striking both wings and the body of a small bat, insta-killing it. "There's finally a village in sight, let's hurry. These damn flying mice are getting on my nerves." I just smiled at my partner's obvious annoyance and broke into a run, heading toward the barely visible village.

Thankfully the village was closer than it looked, because by the time we entered the safe zone, both of our HP bars were deep into the red. I suddenly felt a hard impact on my hindquarters, as the one girl in this game capable of kicking my ass did just that.

Sinon spoke up after taking her anger and/or annoyance out on my posterior. "Just why exactly do all your plans seem to drop one or both of our HP into the red?" but when I attempted to point out that she was the one who wanted to hurry, she just punched my shoulder and retorted "I said hurry, not 'let's run with reckless abandon and receive all attacks except for those that are fatal and hope we survive.' ugh," she leaned against me. "What on earth would you do without me?" I lightly patted her head once as I responded with a straight face to her comment. "Probably shrivel up and die or lose all motivation to continue living."

Thankfully my attempt at a witty comment elicited a small laugh from her, bringing her mood mostly back to normal. "I'll go to the teleport plaza to activate the gate while you go try to get info from NPCs, then when I've activated the gate I'll also gather info. Sound good?" the girl nodded in assent and headed off without saying a word, merely raising her hand in farewell as we separated.

Three hours later, the two of us met up at the center plaza having gathered a reasonable amount of information. I looked at Sinon regretfully, noticing the similar look on her face. "I assume we both came to the same conclusion then?" the girl I addressed nodded. " I suppose so. Do you want to share your info first?"

"As I'm sure you realized, this floor will probably revolve around another story quest, which basically eliminates any chance of us clearing the floor before the beta ends." I waited for the blue-haired head to nod before continuing. "The overall theme of this floor is Vampires, so we can expect transforming monsters, mobs with lifesteal, and more. Oddly enough, none of the NPCs I talked to would so much as mention the castle surrounding the Labyrinth, and would either change the subject or directly run off.

Sinon laughed at my sadness at being unable to discover anything about the castle. She took a drink from the canteen she pulled out of her inventory while I was speaking. She took a long drink out of it before offering it to me and imparting her newly-acquired knowledge.

I took a long draught from the proffered canteen as Sinon began speaking. "Aside from the info you just stated, I received a bit of info on the castle and have several conclusions and hypotheses that can be drawn from that information"

"As you might assume because of the fear the villagers have of the castle, it's the home of the lord of the vampires. Since this is the first time a territory has been possessed by monsters, I think it's a reasonable hypothesis that once we clear out the castle there will be NPCs that move in, giving us unique or better facilities than on previous floors."

I equipped my combat gear and stood up. "Well if you're right that still means we have to conquer that castle, and it certainly isn't going to beat itself, so we better get a move on." the assassin next to me drew her daggers, adding "it's practically confirmed that we won't be able to beat this in the beta, but let's at least give it a shot!"

We high-fived before leaving the village opposite from where we came in, ready to kick some… bubblegum.

* * *

"DAMNIT SINON! REMIND ME AGAIN WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?" I felt a strange sense of deja-vu as I yelled those words at the girl roughly 5 meters away from me. I lunged toward a 3 meter tall wolf, hitting it with the greatsword sword skill 'Tidal Rush', reducing its HP bar by almost 50% and knocking it back slightly due to my overwhelming strength stat.

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO DARED ME TO TOUCH THAT DAMNED LIGHT, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BLAMING ME FOR THIS?" the girl, obviously extremely aggravated, roared back a response as her daggers flashed through several mobs, causing them to shatter into a cascade of iridescent polygons.

Backing up a few minutes, we'd been traveling through the forest relatively peacefully due to the fact that the «Terayangs» didn't appear in this section of forest. Instead, there were massive wolves called «Werewolves». This struck me as slightly strange because they looked and acted like normal wolves. Aside from being extremely clumsy and, you know, 3-4 meters tall.

So while repulsing extremely loud and obvious attacks from those clumsy hulks, we came across one of the lights we saw on the hilltop. Admittedly I did dare Sinon to hit it, but I didn't expect her to _actually _do it. Once she hit it I had a really bad feeling, which was fulfilled a few moments later once we discovered the light acted exactly the same as the fruit on a «Little Nepenthes».

Two hours and 300,000 col worth of crystals later we managed to eliminate what felt like all the wolves in the entire forest. I fell spread-eagle on the ground, but then let out a grunt of pain as all the air was forced from my lungs. It was an entirely reflexive action because we didn't actually have air in our lungs. Hell, we didn't even have lungs for all that I knew about this game.

I opened my eyes to check what on earth the impact was. I knew it wasn't malicious because my HP didn't drop at all. As my eyelids slowly lifted, the face of a girl appeared in my vision. Belatedly I realized the massive impact I felt was Sinon's head hitting my stomach as she lay down.

I opened my mouth to protest the arrangement, but anticipating my protest, the just glared at me. "This is payback for daring me to hit that light." I just sighed and let her stay there, knowing there was no way I could get her to move short of PKing her.

And as weird as strange as it may seem, I slightly enjoyed the sensation.

* * *

Three days later, on the last day of the beta test, we finally reached the massive castle. Unlike what we expected, the castle seemed entirely abandoned, the gate entirely open. **SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: SERVERS CLOSING IN 30 MINUTES. FORCED TELEPORTATION TO THE PLAZA IN 20 MINUTES.**

"Come on Sinon, let's at least enjoy this as much as we can in the few minutes we have before the beta ends." holding my two-handed greatsword loosely in my right hand, I grabbed Sinon's hand with my left as we slowly proceeded through the gates.

The instant we stepped through the gate we both noticed something extremely wrong. The courtyard was entirely filled with the most terrifying mobs we've seen yet: Vampires. The red cursor above them told us that they were significantly stronger than us, but this wasn't the fact that surprised us.

Without exception, every single monster was entirely inert. They weren't sleeping, they weren't stone, there was no visible debuff, they were just frozen in place. We carefully approached a vampire that was farther away from others and flanked it. Sinon's dagger glowed blood-red while my greatsword glowed azure as we prepared sword skills and launched them at the immobilized vampire, testing to see if there would be any change after it took damage.

A blood-red O-shaped skill struck the monster from one side while an azure # shaped sword skill struck it from the other as our high-level sword skills 'Piercing Orbit' and 'TsunamI' struck perfectly simultaneously. Both of us were knocked back by the backlash of the skills hitting a solid object. We stared in surprise at the **[IMMORTAL OBJECT] **that appeared where our skills had landed.

"What's the point of spawning a mob in but giving it immortal status..?" I wondered out loud. Sinon responded in equal confusion. "It's obviously a mob, it's named «Lesser Vampire» and has a cursor." I shook myself out of my daze. "Come on, there isn't much time left before servers close. Just see it as a blessing that they're all glitched or whatever it is. Let's hurry and explore this in the little time we have."

The assassin wordlessly nodded and the two of us rushed farther into the castle.

**SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: SERVERS CLOSING IN 20 MINUTES. FORCED TELEPORTATION TO THE PLAZA IN 10 MINUTES.**

We reflexively panted as we sprinted up the umpteenth flight of stairs. "Why… *pant* did they have to… *pant* PUT SO MANY DAMN STAIRS IN THIS CASTLE!" the girl running alongside me just punched my shoulder in response to my outburst, silently encouraging me to move faster.

The minutes counted down to servers closing as we rushed up the tower at breakneck speed, flying past vampires, gargoyles, terrifying mounds of flesh called «Livestock», and more. As we reached the top of the tower I checked the timer counting down in the top left corner of my HUD. _'seven minutes... not very long, but let's get everything out of it that we can,'_

A massive door stood before us. A Boss Room. "it's now or never." Sinon and I nodded at each other as we pushed open the door with a single shove. Our eyes were blinded for a moment by the bright light that emitted from the room.

"Welcome!" we jumped in surprise, dropping into defensive stances at unexpectedly hearing a human voice. As our eyes adjusted to the light, we saw a massive banquet room laid out before us.

We were shocked as we saw the man sitting in a throne at the end of the long hall. Yes, a man. We were stunned to see a human in the boss room. If you discount that he was 50cm taller than the average japanese male and had red eyes, he looked perfectly human. I almost relaxed until I noticed something.

"Sinon… back off, this isn't someone we can take, even with our skills." I heard a gasp come from the girl behind me as she saw the cursor above above his head. Black. Pitch black.

**SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: SERVERS CLOSING IN 15 MINUTES. FORCED TELEPORTATION TO THE PLAZA IN 5 MINUTES.**

"Please, don't leave on my account. As you can tell, I'm not a normal boss monster." I recoiled, surprised at a boss that was sentient and self-aware. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm unable to reveal my official name to you due to system restraints, but you can refer to me as 'Two".

"Please, I'm not going to attack you, so put away your weapons. I'd like to mention a few things before you're teleported away." I put away my weapon and motioned to Sinon to do the same, knowing that the black cursor signified that if he decided to kill us, we'd die equally fast whether we fought back or not.

"Please, have a seat." the tall vampire said, pulling two chairs out of nowhere and motioning to them with a graceful motion. We didn't move, tacitly declining his invitation, but he continued, unperturbed. "First off I'd like to congratulate you on making it this far. Alongside several other predictions, Cardinal calculated that it was impossible for players to reach my throne in the beta test. But, not for the first time, you two have broken a prediction made by the world's most powerful AI."

I looked at him in surprise, wondering about his knowledge. I was just about to speak up, but the cyan-haired assassin stepped up next to me and took the words right out of my mouth. "Thank you for your kind compliment, Two, but may I ask how you know this? I wasn't aware of any NPCs ingame that were directly connected to the Cardinal system as you seem to be."

He laughed good-humoredly at her polite address. "Indeed, it's not common knowledge that I'm connected to Cardinal." he was cut off as a large message flashed on our HUDs. **SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: SERVERS CLOSING IN 11 MINUTES. FORCED TELEPORTATION TO THE PLAZA IN 1 MINUTE.**

"Well sadly we're out of time. I'll merely tell you that I'm the 13th Child of the Cardinal system. Hopefully you'll meet me and my brothers and sisters in the official release." he waved at us as a blue light covered our bodies in preparation for the teleport.

"Thank you for making it here, I'm glad to have someone to talk to. Even an AI can get lonely, you know." His last word faded into darkness as we were teleported to the main plaza.

There were announcements from various red-robed developers and even a speech from Kayaba Akihiko himself, but I heard none of it. '_What on earth was that? A sentient AI as a boss? The black cursor over him… it was almost as if the 33rd floor was meant to not be passed. What could be the meaning of intentionally blocking off a floor from access? Especially when the world's greatest AI predicted no one could reach it?'_

My thoughts followed that train of thought until I felt my body abruptly change locations, going from standing in a plaza to laying on a bed. A white screen popped up in front of my eyes that said "**The development team at Argus thanks you for assisting in the closed beta test of Sword Art Online! We hope to see you in the official release! :)**"

I smiled at the informal smiley face that was added at the end of the message, enjoying how casual and personable the game development staff was. I stretched my body, stiff after laying inert for hours. '_Two months, huh. Time to start drafting up plans and builds to start off as fast as we can. Let's be the first to reach the castle on floor 33 and get some more answers out of that Vampire.'_

* * *

**Note: Thanks for reading! The release of the SAO death game will start next chapter, which should be out in two days or so. **

**New Sword Skills in this chapter:**

Tidal Rush' a mid-rank sword skill for greatswords. Rushes nearly instantaneously to a target within two meters and strikes with a single massive blow, interrupting most skills, and knocking the target back. Knockback depends on strength discrepancy between the user and the target. Color: navy blue. combo: 1

'Tsunami': a high-rank sword skill for greatswords. Deals four rapid strikes in a # pattern, staggers the target. Color: azure. combo: 4

'Piercing Orbit' a high-rank skill for daggers. Deals a single circular cut. Damage to weak points within the circle is increased 5 times. Effect lasts 5 seconds or until a weak point within the circle is damaged. Color: blood-red. Combo: 1


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: Sorry for the late release. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the chapter!**

LEDGER: [Skill name] "Spoken words" 'Thoughts' *sound effects* message/system text «monster» 'sword skill' ««item name»»

* * *

Earth, 11:00

I was roused from my sleep by the sound of a doorbell ringing. Through my sleepy haze I could faintly hear a door opening and the voices of two girls on the floor below. I suddenly shot out of bed as the realization of what today was struck me with the force of a rampaging water buffalo.

'_Shit! It's the official release date of Sword Art Online! Crap, Shino is going to kill me for forgetting that we were planning on diving together!' _I threw clothes on as fast as I could, trying to create a semblance to being awake and ready before the two girls entered my room. "Onii-chan, Shino is here." the slightly muffled voice of my sister came through my closed door. "Oh hi, come on in." as I spoke I quickly sat down in my chair, opening one of the many SAO related documents I had on my computer.

For the first time in my life I was grateful for my eternal bedhead. The two girls entered my room without a single suspicion that I had just been sleeping not even 3 minutes before. After we exchanged greetings, Shino handed me a gray helmet: her NerveGear. She looked slightly embarrassed as she did so. "Could you help me? I tried to transfer the build and guide documents from my laptop to my NerveGear but it wasn't working for some reason."

I just nodded, smiling at her embarrassment. "Sure, no problem. It's a pretty complicated process and I'm not sure if you have all the required software anyway. I'm not sure exactly what all it takes because I have a lot of NerveGear-related software on my computer from working on the Tuning System.

* * *

After nearly two hours of waiting and planning, the time finally came. Shino and I both had uncontrollable grins on our faces as we anticipated our return to the world we loved. Our world. The world where we could be ourselves, the world where we were strong.

Shino and I high-fived before putting on our helmets and laying down, I on my bed and Shino on a futon that we had brought up earlier. We watched the clock in the top left corner of the semi-transparent visor. We shared a glance, nodded, then simultaneously said "Link start!"

I felt the strange yet familiar sensation as there was a rush of light and my body became weightless. Slowly my senses were projected were projected into a familiar body. Touch. Sight. Hearing. Taste. Smell. Each individual sense was slowly connected, the entire connection taking nearly three minutes.

I began to go through the login procedure as my final three senses connected, only needing touch and sight to go through the process. Thankfully my avatar from the beta test was saved, allowing me to forego the difficulty of recreating my avatar. In addition, it recorded my starting weapons I had selected during the beta. I kept these the same, as I also planned to use a greatsword in the full release. As I selected the option to entirely copy my avatar from the beta test, a system notification that surprised me popped up.

**Thank you for assisting in the beta testing of Sword Art Online! You may select a single skill you gained in the beta test to carry over to the official launch of the game.**

**[WARNING] Any chosen skill will result in temporary or permanent debuffs to your account and/or selected skill based on the strength of the skill selected for the purpose of balancing the game.**

A grin spread across my face as I realized the full implications of this. Without hesitating I selected the skill that carried me through the entire beta. The skill I created myself, [Single-handed wielding]. Custom skills were classified as extra skills, the level above basic, so I had some serious penalties. However, the strength of the skill far made up for it. Once I selected the skill a screen came up showing the penalties for using that skill.

**-5% decrease in level and skill experience gain until Player level 10**

**[Single-handed wielding] gives the ability to equip any double-handed weapon in a single hand, gaining the characteristics of a single-handed weapon while retaining its own.**

**-Decreases stats of any double-handed weapon by 10%-20%**

**-Decreases stat requirement of any single-handed weapon by 10%-5%**

**-An item can not be equipped in the off-hand when using a double-handed weapon**

The penalty was doubled and the buff was cut in half, but I sighed in relief as I saw that it retained its original functionality. Just as I confirmed my selection, a beep informed me that my senses were synced. With a single thought my avatar appeared in an infinite white space containing nothing but two buttons. **[Log In] **and **[Log Out].**

Without an ounce of hesitation I selected the **[Log In] **button, returning to the world that I'd been prevented from entering for far too long.

*fffffffhhhhhhooooooooooooshhh* a soft wind blew through the empty square. The Town of Beginnings. After three months I was back here again. The wind lifted my hair and I felt the unfamiliar feeling of my hair covering my eyes, as my avatar's hair was longer than my hair in real life. Suddenly there was an enormous rushing noise as thousands of players logged in, almost within a single breath, instantly covering two thirds of the plaza that, mere moments ago, had been empty save for myself.

I broke into a run as even more players logged in, attempting to leave the plaza and reach the place that Shino, no, Sinon and I had agreed to meet up. '_Damned random login, why Kayaba didn't add a feature to spawn players on the same IP in together I'll never know.' _after a few minutes of shoving through players and cursing my luck at being spawned in at the center of the plaza, I finally managed to clear the crowd, and broke into a run.

"HEY!" I heard an unfamiliar voice yell from behind me. I turned around to see a scruffy looking red-haired player run up to me. A few moments later, he caught up to me, panting heavily from exertion. "You look like you know your way around here, were you a beta tester?" assuming his guess was correct, he just continued without letting me affirm his question. "Can you teach me the ropes? I'm a big MMO player, but the learning curve on this game has to be MASSIVE!"

'_Nothing I'd be losing by teaching him, I just hope Sinon won't be mad at me.'_ I thought for a few moments before responding. "Sure, but just warning you, I'm going to be meeting up with a friend in a level 2 zone, so if you die all bets are off." "Roger!" he saluted crisply before a look a confusion appeared on his face. "Level 2 zone?" I sighed as I started walking off, motioning for him to follow me. "I thought you said you played MMOs before? I mean a zone with level two monsters."

I sent him a party request as we walked. '_Klein, huh. Not a bad sounding name. At least he isn't like that Pu$$y$l yer guy that Sinon made a point of PKing every time we came across.' _a stray thought floated through my head as I glanced at the health bar now displayed below mine. It took me a moment, but I realized the source of his confusion. "Ahh, you're wondering why level two monsters would pose a problem, right?" my newly-acquired companion simply nodded in assent, glad that I'd seen the reason for his confusion without too much embarrassment.

"Well, it's easier to demonstrate than explain." I picked up a small rock on the side of the road, activating the basic 'throwing' sword skill that simply increased the accuracy of any thrown object. Right on target, my stone struck the rump of a small boar, barely reducing its hp by 2%. My goal, however, was perfect accomplished as the monster's eyes started to glow red and it charged toward us. I tapped Klein's shoulder. "Off you go, fight your first monster. It's level 1 for reference"

"YES!" Klein let out a yell as he charged toward the incoming boar, swinging his sword violently. I facepalmed at his extremely clumsy actions. "Ok, come back here Klein, you obviously didn't look up anything about this game before you logged in." Klein abruptly stopped at my call and turned to look at me, which, funnily enough, ended up saving his life. Due to its target's sudden halt and turn to the side, the boar charged straight past its intended victim, heading directly at me.

I sighed, activating a simple upward 'Slant' at the incoming monster, aiming for its vitals. Needless to say, my sword skill hit directly on target without a millimeter of error, dealing fatal critical, insta-killing the mob. Klein looked at me in amazement. "What was that awesome looking blue light on your sword? Can I do that!?" I facepalmed at his overenthusiastic but oblivious manner.

"Yes you can do that. The move I just did there was one of four system-assist basic attack motions. The four motions, or skills, are 'Horizontal', 'Slant', 'Uppercut', and 'Vertical'." I demonstrated, using each skill as I said its name. "Although these are classified as sword skills and not basic attacks, most players in the beta referred to them as basic attacks because at skill level 100 for any weapon those sword skills would lose their glow and be much easier to control, making them more like basic attacks than sword skills. Some other weapons have additional or alternate skills, such as 'Linear' for the rapier or 'Cleave' for two-handed axes, but those four skills are core for the vast majority of weapons in this game."

"There are also 'Specialized' sword skills that act slightly differently. Most of these skills fall under an assassin category, but there are some for other weapons. These Specialized skills focus solely on a single concept, such as attack, area attack, or defense, to list a few. These skills are only average in their execution of that single concept, but their strength lies in their quick deployment, short post-motion period, and low cooldown time. Some of these skills even have Charges so they can be used multiple times in quick succession."

I motioned to a second boar about 10 meters away. "Try attacking that boar with 'Horizontal', it's the easiest to use." My intrepid companion readied his sword, charged bravely at the boar and unleashed a dazzling combination of skills so as to amaze anyone who saw it.

...or so he seemed to wish. In reality he successfully activated horizontal, but somehow managed to activate it in the wrong direction, barely grazing the boar.

"grrraaYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAOUUUUUCHH!" I burst into laughter as the most horrible scream ripped from my unskilled and equally unfortunate companion as the boar headbutted him directly in his nether regions.

"Come on man," I managed to choke out while laughing, "you can't feel pain in this game." suddenly the writhing red mass stopped moving and stood up. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. Reflex. Heh, heh. Heh…" he tried to laugh at his own stupidity and miserably failed. He stood up, aiming at the boar again, this time hitting it dead on with a 'Vertical', dealing almost half its HP in a single go. "YEAH!" he took an attack from the boar, then launched another 'Horizontal at his attacker, this one landing perfectly on target, causing the monster to shatter into dozens of small shards. "Wow… I never thought a death animation could be beautiful" "heh," I laughed in response to his comment. "Yeah, it's a pretty crazy thought, but you'll get used to it after a while. Something is a hell of a lot less beautiful when it's trying or was trying to kill you.

After getting over the beauty of the iridescent shards, Klein pumped his fist in the air "HELL YEAH! I JUST TOOK DOWN" he turned to me in mid-sentence, "what was that, a field boss or something." I shook my head with a laugh. "Nope, that was basically a slime." "YEAHHH I JUST TOOK DOWN A SLIME! Waitwhat, did you just say a slime?" I was unable to stop chuckling at his overenthusiastic manner and abrupt mood swings. "Yep, you heard me right, that thing was about the equivalent of slimes in other games." losing his previous enthusiastic manner, Klein dropped to his knees in despair.

Once my depressed protégé recovered enough to stand up, he interrupted the resumption of my SAO Combat 101 lecture by stiffening and reacting in a strange manner as he caught sight of something behind me. "G-G-Good afternoon! K-Klein, 22 years old, single, looking for a g-girlfrien-AAAAAAAAGGGGGURK" another strange noise emitted from the extremely unfortunate 22 year old as a cyan haired blur flashed past me, hitting the poor soul's nether regions with a solid kick, sending him flying. The girl who just vented her frustration on my relatively innocent student then turned to me, a mock angry look on her face. "You're late. And where did you pick up that trash anyway?"

I just smiled and shook my head at her description of Klein. "He's actually a relatively decent guy once you get past his ugly face and him hitting on you." I facepalmed as I heard a constant groan coming from several meters away. "And once you get past the fact that he doesn't have the best memory. THERE'S NO PAIN KLEIN!" "oh, right, I forgot again, hehhh…" "uuuurgh…" Sinon patted my back comfortingly as I let out a groan at the goldfish-like brain of the red-haired man.

I invited Sinon to the party. "Let's stick to our plan and train Klein as we go. If he dies it'll be on his head with no hard feelings." I leaned in slightly closer to the girl to prevent Klein from hearing my next comment. "He's actually quite a quick learner, his first attempt was miserable but after that he seemed to adjust perfectly. It definitely didn't look like pure luck." The girl was obviously still hesitant to accept him because of his previous attempt to hit on her. "Listen, if he hits on you again just PK him. No problem then, right?"

Sinon begrudgingly nodded, assenting to his joining the party for the moment. "Yo, Klein, let's get going. We're heading to a zone with «Venomous Hornets» to try to get a dagger drop for Sinon." once he joined us I pulled him aside, whispering "By the way, I'd highly advise not hitting on Sinon anymore, she'll _definitely_ kill you if you do so. It doesn't hurt due to the game's limitations, but getting cut into several dozen pieces isn't comfortable, even without pain."

His face paled slightly as we walked on, but I assumed he learned his lesson as he barely spoke half a dozen words to Sinon the entire time we were walking.

* * *

"YEEEEEOWCH"

"YOU CAN'T FEEL PAIN DAMNIT KLEIN"

I hit the red-haired idiot with a light kick, knocking him out of the way as a hornet twice the size of a human head shot at him. I hit it with a rapid 'Uppercut', knocking it back before finishing it off with a 'Snake Bite'. I glanced at the drop window, closing it after I confirmed that the item we were looking for hadn't dropped.

I looked on with satisfaction as Sinon took on two hornets by herself, deftly dodging the attack of one while she used 'Rush' twice in quick succession before hitting one of the hornets in the back with a 'Backstab'. I was rudely interrupted from my spectating as a hornet rushed at my face. I sidestepped, a perfectly timed 'Horizontal' connecting with its weak point, cutting its HP by over two thirds in a single hit. After that it only took a quick 'Rage Spike' to finish the wounded creature off.

I dismissed the drop window quickly, not breaking my concentration. We had entered deep into the territory of a field boss, so a single lapse in concentration could mean being sent back to Chamber of Resurrection and losing almost all the experience and col we gained so far. The death penalties in this game were no joke. But we didn't pick this area on a whim, of course. A rare dagger dropped here that could easily be used until Floor 5. Although its base stats were barely above average it had a DoT (Damage over Time) poison effect that made it the best dagger for several floors. And although this area was dangerous, death could be easily avoided by simply being careful.

"Hey!" Sinon and I turned around as a voice was raised from a certain red-haired idiot. "Is the item you're looking for a dagger called the ««Vespa»»? *cshh* I finished off my current target with a simple diagonal swing of my sword and turned to Klein. "Yeah, did it drop for you?" he nodded in affirmation. "Great! Since you aren't a permanent member of our party I'll pay you 1,000 col for the dagger. Sound good?" I opened up a trade window but he shook his head, throwing me the dagger and transferring ownership. "Nah man, I couldn't take money for that. You guys helped me out a lot, teaching me how to play and even helping me level up to level 2."

I was glad at his gratefulness as it wasn't something you see very often nowadays. I opened up my menu, tapping a few buttons. "Well if you don't want Col, would you at least accept this?" I asked with a smile. Klein looked surprised as he saw the menu that popped up in front of him.

**Player [Kirito] would like to be friends with you.**

**Accept/Reject**

He responded with a smile. "I'll gladly take that payment." I glanced down at my friends list, now with two names on it. Sinon poked my side and said laughingly "Now we just have to find Argo and your friends list will be full!" I elbowed her in the side in response to her quip. "Just because I only had two people on my friends list during the beta doesn't mean I have to have as few in the full release. The beta only lasted a month after all."

"Hey, can we take a break now? We've been hunting for a good 4 hours now." I turned to Sinon to get her input. She stretched and responded "Yeah, I agree with Klein. Not everyone is a monster like you who can go 40 hours without a break." I rolled my eyes. Sinon smiled at Klein. "Come on, I know just the place." Thankfully Sinon had warmed up to Klein slightly when she realized he was a good guy at heart, just a little desperate.

"Wow… it's amazing to think that this is a virtual world…" Klein let out a breathless sigh as Sinon lead us to a hilltop overlooking a valley. A fiery blaze lit the sky as the sun began to descend beneath the horizon. Wispy clouds that floated across the sky caught the last rays of the dying sun, turning to brilliant shades of gold and purple. Minutes passed as we sat there, staring in awe at the incredible sight, admiring both the beauty of the scenery as well as the beauty that proved the brilliance of humans and their ability to constantly transcend their limits, reaching a frontier that, just several years ago, was in the realm of fantasy.

Sinon relaxed next to me, resting her head on my right shoulder and closing her eyes. I stroked her head gently with my left hand, both of us enjoying the warm rays of the setting sun and the feeling of calmness that was all so rare in our lives filled with school and adventuring that inevitably brought us into the craziest situations.

Klein looked over at me stroking the head of the girl resting against my shoulder and gave a knowing smile. I simply responded with a look of minor confusion, having no idea what he could be thinking.

* * *

**Note: I wanted to end this chapter before the reveal of the missing logout button on a little fluffy note since there was a bit of an info-dump in this chapter and the next good place to put a chapter break would be at least another 2,000 words. (and i'm getting tired :P) Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I had a lot of fun writing more on Klein as he's the most underrated character in SAO in my opinion. I'll try to get the next chapter out tomorrow or the day after, so stay tuned! **

**So i departed quite a bit from the the original SAO game system, but i think it's better than the original so far. If anyone has suggestions for sword skills, skills, the entire system, or my writing style, i'd LOVE to hear your input in a PM or review. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Note: Shorter chapter today, sorry it doesn't cover much. The next chapters should be at least marginally more exciting, as questing and fighting in the SAO death game begins!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1

The red-haired man sitting next to us stood up after several minutes. "I'd love to stay here longer with you guys, but I ordered a pizza that'll be here in 15 minutes or so, so I gotta log for that." I waved my hand in a farewell. "feel free to dm me if you have any questions or want to party again. Cya man." he raised his left hand in farewell, swiping down with his right, navigating through his menu to the logout button.

"uh, Kirito. Noob question. How do you log out? Do you have to be in a safe zone or something?" I shook my head and looked at him in confusion. "There was no mechanic like that in the beta, but who knows what got changed from the beta to the official release." Sinon sat up and stretched, the commotion surrounding the missing logout button disturbing her nap. '_I swear she's just like a cat.' _ I swiped down with my newly-freed right hand, examining my own menu.

A chill ran down my spine as I saw the grayed out logout button. It could be a bug, it could be a feature that only allowed you to log out in a safe zone, it could be any number of things. It could be explained half a dozen ways that would make sense and be perfectly innocent, but my instincts were telling me otherwise. Maybe a normal person would dismiss this, but a martial artist learns to sharpen and trust their instincts, as it is instinct, not logic, that retains your life.

A blue light began to glow around us '_Shit! What the hell could be the meaning of a forced teleport at a time like this?' _I grabbed on to Sinon's hand as fast as I could and lunged forward, grabbing Klein's shoulder before the teleport could activate. Normally moving in the three second channel time of a teleport would cancel it, but you could freely move if a teleport was forced by the system.

The three of us found ourselves in the plaza that we'd initially spawned in after character creation, but, like the initial login, the square was filled with blue lights signifying the forced teleportation of the other players, numbering nearly 10,000. I released my grip on Klein and started to relinquish my grasp on Sinon's hand, but she clung to it tighter as red **[WARNING] **and **[SYSTEM ALERT]** signs began flashing and duplicating in the sky above us, soon forming a crimson dome that held the lives of ten thousand.

I felt the small hand in mine clench tighter. "Is that… blood?" I heard a faint terrified voice from beside me. Sinon's entire body visibly tensed up and her breathing became rapid and irregular, a prelude to a panic attack. I stepped closer to her and placed my hand on top of her head in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. "Hey, are you ok?" I bent down slightly, looking into her eyes. What I saw only confirmed my barely formed suspicions. Her eyes were wide and unfocused as if she were seeing something other than the sight in front of us, something far more terrifying than the already disconcerting scenario surrounding us.

Just as she began to get control of herself, the blood dripped down, forming a red-cloaked figure. The costume of a GM. At the sight of the blood coagulating into a human, the girl collapsed in a heap on the ground, shivering and muttering things along the lines of "No, please stop. I didn't kill you, I didn't, I swear I'm innocent. I swear I didn't mean to, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry imsorryimsorry…" I bent down and held the helplessly shuddering girl, trying to provide her with a feeling of security that I most certainly was not feeling myself.

"Welcome, Players, to my World." I turned my gaze to the faceless read-cloaked figure in the sky as it began to speak. "My name is Kayaba Akihiko. I am currently the one and only person who can control this world." My mind shot back through various articles I had read that mentioned how hardly any of the staff at Argus worked on much more than a small segment of the game, and how Kayaba was the only person in the entire company who had access to Cardinal and the other systems that ran Sword Art Online.

"I'm sure that you've all already noticed that the logout button on the main menu has been removed. However, this is by no means a mistake. I repeat. This is not a mistake, but a feature of the true Sword Art Online. "No way…" a stupified voice came from the guy standing by us. "What's the point of creating a game that you can't log out of?" I struggled to keep my body relaxed to prevent Sinon from feeling my terror as I had a feeling what was coming next. "I think he's about to tell us that, Klein, and I'm sure whatever it is it won't be pleasant.

"Yes, you are all unable to log out of SAO, and nobody in the real world can remove the NerveGear or interrupt its operation. Should it be attempted, a powerful burst of microwave radiation emitted from a transmitter in the NerveGear will destroy your brain, thus ending your life." The crowd started murmuring at this statement, some in shock, some in horror, some believing it was a joke, some thinking it was an event, some wanting to log out immediately, and the list continues. Ten thousand people with ten thousand different reactions, each person expressing their own belief to their neighbor.

"He's got to be out of his mind, right Kirito?" Klein turned to me, asking a question that would normally be taken as laughing at a crazy man, but the tone in his voice betraying the fear he felt at the in the light of what he just experienced. I just shook my head in despair. "the signals from the NerveGear are really like a microwave. Remove the safety and frying someone's brain is entirely possible.

"What if we-" Klein began frantically, but I just shook my head, cutting him off. "This is Kayaba Akihiko we're talking about, he wouldn't be stupid enough to leave any obvious loopholes open. Hell, he wouldn't even leave any loopholes open knowing him. He created an entirely bugless beta, something that has never been done in the history of technology, let alone gaming." As if to prove my point, Kayaba continued, sealing our fate.

"Unfortunately, it's certainly possible that a player's family or friends would ignore this warning or attempt to find a loophole in the system and forcibly remove the NerveGear. As proof of this, 213 players have been removed both from this world and the real one, bringing the total players connected to SAO to 9,642." the entire square was filled with silence, almost as if every single player had been forcibly muted. Indeed they had, but they weren't muted by the system. Instead they were muted by the dozens of screens Kayaba had summoned that were now floating over the crowd. Scenes of dead bodies, ambulances, crying family members, and more. The outside world was experiencing a hell that mirrored the hell we were in right now.

"In addition to this, all methods of revival will henceforth cease to function. If your HP hits zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system, and at that moment the NerveGear will destroy your brain." my face went entirely pale as I remembered words that I spoke hours ago. Hours that now seemed like eternity. Indeed an entire world separated me from those words I carelessly spoke, not knowing the full connotation of them. '_If he hits on you, just PK him.' _a chill ran down my spine as I realized I could very well caused Sinon to commit murder, destroying the life of an innocent man.

I felt something shift in my head, a feeling I'd felt in hundreds of fights. When I first learned martial arts I never would have guessed that I'd be using them in a game. I felt almost grateful to Kayaba as I remembered the email he sent me, requesting me to join the beta so that my real life abilities could be translated with more accuracy. '_Just leave it to someone like Kayaba to learn who I am. I could have done a better job of keeping it a secret, but finding it out with the little information he was starting with is incredible.' _I grabbed Sinon's hand. "Come on, let's go. We're trapped here for now but I'm sure he'll release the barrier once he's done talking. We need to get out of here ASAP."

"There is only one condition you must meet to be free: the completion of this game." At these words I snapped around. Although MMOs had storylines and lore, I had never seen an MMO with a clear goal, an end point. "If you climb through all the floors, defeating the floor boss on each one, and finally climb to the top floor and defeat the boss residing the palace there, the game will be considered cleared. The lock on the NerveGear and the logout button will be released and you may all go back to your normal lives. I hope you all will be able to learn what I've created this world to teach you, a concept that few in the real world ever have the pleasure to comprehend."

I was strangely calm as shouts arose from the crowd around me.

"You're crazy!"

"You psychopath!"

"Why the hell are you doing this!?"

"Can't you just let us live in peace?"

"What the hell are you trying to teach us by killing us all?!"

I closed my ears to the shouts around me, ignoring the screams of the people cursing at Kayaba and pleading for their lives. "I know you desperately want to go out and play the game I've prepared for you, but I have one last announcement to make. I've prepared a present for you all in your item storages that I hope will make your journey much easier. Klein, myself, and Sinon, who by now had mostly recovered from her panic attack all opened our inventories. Aside from the few items I had that had dropped from monsters in my few hours of farming, I saw a small mirror named ««Mirror of Truth»».

The three of us simultaneously drew the mirror from our inventories. Once everyone had drawn the mirror from their inventory, Kayaba waved his sleeve over the plaza. Lights began to glow, forming auras around every player. I looked around in confusion as I was surrounded by an unfamiliar crowd. The handsome, beautiful, cute, and overall perfect avatars that surrounded me had transformed into far more realistic characters. My heart skipped a beat as I looked at the girl holding my hand. A dark haired and dark eyed girl looked at me. Instead of the blue-eyed blue-haired girl I had played with in SAO for so many hours, the girl named Asada Shino stared back at me.

Horror filled my mind as I looked down at the mirror in my hands, Shino, no, Sinon, making an identical movement to look at the mirror in her hand. As I feared, my real face stared back at me. "This concludes the tutorial for the official launch of the true Sword Art Online. Play safe. I look forward to seeing the development all of you will undergo." I tightened my grip on Sinon's hand and grabbed Klein's arm "Come on, we have to get out of here." The cloaked figure disappeared and the sky cleared instantly, releasing the barrier trapping us in. I ran as fast as I could, dragging the stunned girl and the shocked man.

I drug the two into an alley, a shortcut to the town exit. "Listen up. We need to move on to the next town as soon as we can. Quests are limited in this game, so we have to complete them to get strong as fast as possible. I didn't want to do this quest at level two, especially now that this is a death game, but I don't have a choice anymore. Klein, are you coming with us?"

The unfamiliar man that I now knew was the true face of Klein backed up, hesitantly shaking his head. "Sorry, Kirito. I'd love to come with you, but I have friends from another game that are somewhere in the plaza." I nodded my head in understanding. "Alright, good luck, Klein. Make sure you contact me if you ever need anything." The girl next to me nodded, surprising me slightly as she gave Klein a small smile."You're a pretty decent guy, Klein, contrary to what your face says about you. Fly safe." I smiled at her out-of-place use of the catchphrase of all players in EVE Online.

Klein obvious got the reference as he saluted at the two of us before turning around to leave. As Sinon and I mimicked his action, preparing to break into a run to head to the next city, I heard a voice come from behind me. "Hey Kirito? Sinon?" we turned around at the call of the man we'd just said our goodbyes to. "Don't die, you two. And Kirito, protect her as she deserves. I'll see you around." Without waiting for a response, the man turned and ran off back toward the plaza.

I'm sure it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw a droplet of water hit the ground as Klein ran off. After all, what could have made a water droplet like that?

* * *

**Note: So there's obviously a _little_ more to Kazuto than there was in the canon, but that isn't going to be a major plot point. Also Klein will get a lot more time than in the anime, but that's for another time. Also I hope it's made clear by now that Kirito isn't going to use only greatswords (he'll also use longswords such as the Anneal Blade that I referenced in this chapter), he just has a skill that allows him to use a greatsword like a normal longsword. I did this to actually give him a reason to not use a shield, because he avoided using a shield for an entire year without any reason in the canon. (Sorry I should have put this note in the last chapter, but I forgot so I'm putting it here.)**

**ANYWAY**

**Thanks for reading! I really didn't expect much when I first started writing this fanfic, so it's been awesome to see that people have actually been enjoying my crappy writing. Quick reminder that if anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, i'd be glad if you left a review or shot me a pm! Hope to see you next chapter ;)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Note: Phew, this chapter ended up being a quite a bit longer than I intended. Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1 Fields

The wind rushed through the trees as the moonlight filtered through their branches, casting shadows on the ground. The silvery light caused strange shapes to appear in the areas that the rays from the queen of the night could never reach. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not the real world, that I was in a perfect replica of my body, not my actual body. I tried to tell myself that any enemy that appeared would have a cursor over it, but I was unable to relax my tense body because all my instincts were screaming to be alert; telling me that I'd die if I relaxed my guard for a single moment. The soft moonlight refracted, shattering off my blade of my drawn greatsword that had been at the ready for the past 15 minutes we'd been traveling.

Unlike most games, where you could kill monsters several levels over you, the SAO level system was very strict. During the beta it was nearly impossible to find a player who could solo a normal monster three levels over his own level, and Sinon and I were the only players who were known to be able to solo kill monsters four levels over our own, but that was only in the best scenario. Every level in this game meant a nigh-insurmountable gap, one that could only be bridged if you were the best of the best.

At lower levels it was even harder to bridge level gaps due to the lack of skills available. At our peak in the beta we were each level 41, having unlocked seven skill slots. These skills gave us a myriad of sword skills and a million different strategic combinations that allowed us to overcome opponents several levels above us, and we became nearly unbeatable when our skills were combined, the whole being far greater than the sum of the parts. Sadly, with our limited skills right now, it was impossible to recreate such teamwork, each of us having only [Hiding] in addition to our weapon skills that hadn't even reached high enough level to unlock more sword skills.

Knowing this, you'd probably agree with me that we're idiots for heading into a territory with level 3 monsters, barely being at level 2 ourselves. Sadly this was from necessity. There was a limited quest for the strongest sword on the first three floors that could only be run 50 times. This meant that barely 0.5% of the players would manage to get their hands on this sword, the ««Anneal Blade»», and I was determined to be one of them.

Strength was the only thing that mattered in this hellish world, and I was going to become strong. Neither I nor Sinon were the type to sit around, hoping for someone to clear the game. We would do it ourselves, even if no one stood by us. That was what we did best, after all. We were both loners, but loners that worked together with a chemistry that was unique in this world. A girl who was shunned by everyone and a boy who never wanted to be with others struck an unlikely friendship and created a duo as terrifying as it was unlikely.

"Careful!" I yelled in alarm as our first target appeared through the trees: a «Little Nepenthes». We were attempting to complete the **«Secret Medicine of the Forest»** quest that required an extremely rare drop from a specific «Little Nepenthes» that rarely spawned with a flower atop its head.

The reason I decided to do this quest, aside from necessity, was because I was confident in our ability to deal with the very basic attacks of this plant monster. Although our physical reactions were, to a great extent, augmented by the system, that was a mere correction instead of the full system assist that sword skills used. To explain it slightly clearer, the DEX, or Dexterity stat, gave the player a system-assisted hand-eye coordination and body movement correction, so the higher the DEX stat, the smaller the discrepancy between where you think you're moving your body and where your body actually moves is.

So this stat is influenced by the coordination of your real body. The NerveGear had you do a series of calibration movements to figure out what your real life coordination was like. During the beta test this could be recalibrated at any point, but I guess we won't have to worry about that during the official release. Both Sinon and I had extremely good coordination in real life, so it was far easier for us to dodge at the early stages of the game than it was for most players.

Sinon and I easily dodged the initial attack of the «Little Nepenthes», which was a simple overhead strike from its two arm-like vines. '_After this comes a rapid double strike from the right and the left that will be targeted at one of us. At this point the other will drive in, dealing as much damage as possible before it recovers from the attack missing.' _All monsters had a period of immobility if an attack was blocked or dodged. This period had a lot of variables, but I knew for the «Little Nepenthes» it was 1.8 seconds if dodged normally, 2.5 seconds if blocked by a greatsword, and 3 seconds if blocked by a shield. You can get an idea of how many of these monsters we've killed to have their movements calculated to a tenth of a second.

Take that number you have in your head and multiply it by 10.

Then multiply that number by 100.

Then you'll be at almost half of what we had to kill to get the one with the flower to spawn.

I have crap luck, ok? Yeah I'm entirely aware of it.

As the movement calculations of the monster shot through my head, a second passed where we both remained immobile, waiting for the monster to select its target. Indeed it did so, aiming at me. Losing no time, Sinon leapt into the gap created by its attack, launching a rapid 'Flurry' at its side. 'Flurry' was a basic skill that dealt 4 hits in less time than it took to deal a single hit, but was hardly ever used since each strike dealt 1/10th of a normal 'Horizontal' or any of the other skills that would soon be used as basic attacks.

However, in Sinon's case, this skill was a terrifying weapon due to the DoT effect her dagger dealt. In the 1.8 seconds I managed to deal a 'Horizontal' while Sinon managed to land her 'Flurry' and three more basic attacks that hardly dealt any damage but succeeded in stacking the poison from her dagger. I almost continued attacking the monster as I knew its next attack to be an overhead strike that could easily be blocked, even at level two with starter gear, but its movement seemed slightly off for an overhead strike using its vines. Suddenly my instincts screamed at me to get back, and I quite literally felt death looming over me as I hurled myself backwards with all the strength I could muster. A cold sweat broke out on my brow as the «Little Nepenthes» bent down, biting at the place that I had been standing less than half a second ago with a mouth larger than my body and an attack that I'm sure would have insta-killed me if I hadn't dodged.

'_What the hell? That attack wasn't in the beta!' _"Careful!" I shouted frantically at Sinon. "We don't know what else could have changed from the beta." We took the rest of the fight extremely carefully, moving away every single time it began a new attack and carefully dodging that attack, only attacking ourselves when the monster was in its immobility period from an attack missing.

Thankfully none of the monster's other attack patterns changed, and Sinon's dagger's DoT made this fight far easier than it should have been. As a plant-type monster, the «Little Nepenthes» had extremely high regeneration, which made it a pain to fight as you not only had to try to deplete its already large HP pool, but you had to fight against the flow of its rapidly regenerating HP. The poison from my partner's dagger, however, not only eliminated its HP regeneration, but even reduced its hp by about 1% every 3 seconds, meaning it would die in 5 minutes if we did nothing, proving the strength of poison against certain plant-types.

Killing one «Little Nepenthes» took nearly two minutes, which might sound bad, but is actually pretty good considering we were fighting a monster stronger than us, and our lives were truly at stake. We continued this pattern for nearly seven hours, Sinon reaching level 4 and I reaching level 3 by the time a «Little Nepenthes» with the flower spawned.

* * *

One week into the game, barely any progress had been made toward finding the first floor boss. In fact, players hadn't even made it to the labyrinth yet, let alone began clearing it to try to find the boss lair on its 20th floor. Sinon and I were hunting «Dire Wolves» in the fields, gathering ««Soft Wolf Leather»» to complete a quest that would reward us with our preferred leather armor.

When we returned to the quest location, which was a small unnamed hamlet near village of Horunka, we met a small whiskered figure that neither of us had expected to see here. "Kii-bou!" the small figure yelled while jumping at me, latching onto me by wrapping her arms and legs around my torso, entirely immobilizing me. "A-Argo? Is that you?" completely taken aback, I asked the most obvious question in the world, as no one else in this game would refer to me as Kii-bou, other than the whiskered information dealer known affectionately (or not so affectionately in some cases) as the Rat.

When Argo had come flying toward me her hood that she always kept up had fallen back, revealing her short, slightly curly blonde hair. After a few moments she released me from her death grip, pulling back and redirecting her attention to the girl at my side. As Sinon got the same treatment from Argo that I had gotten a few moments previously, I was able to register and admire the small girl that I now knew the real life appearance of. Her real body was even smaller than her already small avatar was during the beta, standing at around 150 cm. Her beta test avatar had apparently retained her true eye color, as when we made eye contact after she withdrew from hugging Sinon, I saw a pair of faint green, almost yellow eyes looking back at me with an excited gleam in them.

We stared at each other for a few moments in a blissful silence, the three of us wordless with happiness at this reunion. As Sinon mentioned previously, Argo was my only friend I had made in Sword Art Online during the beta, our relationship as business partners being as deep as our real friendship. "Ya know, with an avatar as bright and colorful as yours was, Sinono-chii, I didn't expect your real life appearance to be so muted." Sinon just mumbled something in response, not knowing how to deal with the exuberant blonde. Back during the beta, even with her avatar, Sinon wasn't very good at dealing with Argo, but she'd become even more timid in her real body, making a strange contrast to Argo, who's transformation into her real life body seemed to make her even more rowdy.

I pulled the small bundle of energy away from Sinon. I was about to comment on how she was even shorter in real life than her avatar was, hoping that I'd be able to get to her with a short joke, but I stopped abruptly as a small mail icon appeared in my HUD next to the clock. I got a bad feeling as I opened it up, knowing it had to be from Klein as he was the only person on my friend's list who wasn't with me right now. I opened it up and saw four obviously hastily typed words. "Help aneal blad PK" Argo and Sinon turned to me, the former's teasing of the latter abruptly cut off as they both heard me swear quietly. "We need to go, Klein is in trouble. I'll explain as we go." Argo looked at me, a slightly surprised look on her face. "Klein? That scruffy faced guy who looks like a thug? If he's in trouble I'd better come along and help then, I don't want to lose a well paying customer."

I was briefly surprised that Argo knew Klein, but I dismissed that as it was no use thinking about it. The three of us set off at a run with me leading the way toward the woods near Horunka Village where the «Little Nepenthes» spawned. "Yesterday I told Klein about the ««Anneal Blade»» and the quest to acquire it, and apparently today he headed over there to see if the quest was still available. I assume the quest was still available and he managed to get a ««Little Nepenthes Ovule»», but got caught by a group of PKers before he was able to turn the quest in. He didn't even have enough time to spell his words correctly."

When we reached the entrance to the forest it was obvious what was going on, a group of 3 green players was surrounded by 8 orange players. "Damnit, just how many crystals do you have!" An orange player yelled at the three players in the center of the circle as they send another wave of attacks flying at the players in their center. "KLEIN!" I yelled as I saw the familiar red-haired man in the center, desperately fending off attacks from three players at the same time, his hp dropping dangerously low. I activated 'Rage Spike' and lunged toward the players attacking Klein. Sinon quickly followed me with a simple 'Dash' movement skill, taking some pressure off of Klein's two guildmates. With a growl that seemed out of place coming from such a petite body, Argo lunged at the two players that were in the back, preventing them from confusing the battle by joining their comrades.

As the PKers were unwilling to die, they ran away as their hp hit red. Several had obviously used their HP restoration items, as those who still had potions or crystals left used them, unwilling to be caught. Klein and his party regrouped with my party, forming a united front that faced the five remaining members of the PK party. I pointed my ««Anneal Blade»» at them. "It's 6 to 5, only an idiot would take a fight like this. If you leave now we'll let you off; your want to survive is just as great as my want to finish this game without committing murder. However we WILL take you on if you want to fight."

The orange players hesitated, obviously considering taking me up on my offer to flee, but the leader of the group simply called out to his players. "HAH, 6 to 5 they say? Those three players in the back are probably useless. What are the chances we'd run into players stronger than ourselves here? Only those stupid beta testers would be able to beat us, and what beta tester would help out newbies like this? Everyone knows they only care for themselves." The three of us simply smirked at the assumption of their leader. "Then come at us if you find yourselves so overconfident as to try to take on a fight that you're obviously at the disadvantage."

I took a strong stance, hoping to discourage him, but it did the exact opposite. At my words, the leader lunged at me with his colleagues closely following behind. I stepped into the arc of his sword, countering his 'Vertical' with a 'Slant'. His ««Anneal Blade»» crashed against mine with an all too realistic screech. My higher strength overpowered him, deflecting his blade and disrupting his stance as we both were put into an identically long Post-Motion Period. But there was a fatal difference: as soon as I recovered from my Post-Motion I launched a blow at his torso which landed dead on target due to his inability to dodge as his sword skill being deflected had thrown him off balance.

While I was fighting the leader, similar scenes played out as the other members of the PK party clashed with my party. Each player on the opposite side chose an opponent, but due to my side having one more player than their side did, Sinon unfortunately ended up without someone to fight. Unfortunately for them, that is, as she took out her anger at being ignored on the three players attacking Klein's party.

Apparently the player who had attacked Argo had expected her to be an easy target due to her small figure, but BOY was he in for a storm. With her terrifying claw skills, Argo could give even me a fight during the beta. Since claws weren't available until the 4th floor, Argo had to settle with a dagger; but although her skills couldn't be compared to Sinon, there probably weren't even ten players in this game that could defeat this deceptively weak-looking girl.

Unfortunately for the man who attacked her, he wasn't included in that ten. Argo simply deflected his sword skill and countered with a sharp thrust that didn't even have a sword skill attached. However, the dagger remained in his avatar while she twisted it, inflicting a terrifyingly strong bleed effect. Although normal attacks were far under sword skills in damage, daggers specialized in applying status effects, so not even the strongest player could entirely ignore basic attacks from daggers.

In under 15 seconds the battle had been decided. Three of the players immediately ran, the leader and one members standing their ground for a moment. The man standing beside the leader tugged on his sleeve urgently. "Come on PoH, let's get out of here. These aren't people we can deal with. We better take them up on their offer to let us go."

The leader, whose name I now knew as PoH just stared at me with dead eyes. I met his stare, doing my best to not be intimidated. I caught a gleam in his eyes as he turned away, walking off wordlessly. My entire body relaxed as they walked off, making me realize the strange fact that nearly being killed and nearly being forced to kill created similar amounts of stress. '_What was that look in his eye?'_ I found myself wondering. '_Happiness? Anticipation?' _I shuddered at the thought. No matter the cause a murderer had to look at me like that, I was sure it wasn't a good one.

I walked over to the red-haired man who was exhausted both from the fight and the near-death experience and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "C'mon man, let's turn your quest in and get back to a safe zone. You all desperately need some rest." He looked at me and nodded, thankfulness spread across his entire face. "Thanks man, we would have been dead if it weren't for you two-" he cut off the word as it finally registered that there was another figure aside from Sinon and I here.

I saw a mixed expression of fear and confusion on Klein's face as the small blonde girl approached him. "Heya there, Klein my good _buddy_!" I saw an expression of infinite pain on his face as the small girl leaned close to him. Sinon and I both smothered a laugh at his reaction; it was a comfort to know that we weren't the only ones unable to deal with the constant teasing that seemed to be Argo's only way of communicating with those she was comfortable around.

I was the only one who could deal with Argo reasonably well, so I reached over and pulled her away from the obviously highly disturbed Klein. I could practically feel his sigh as I rescued him from the short demon. My age-old hypothesis was proven by Argo, as she was living proof that short girls are just bundles of condensed energy and sarcasm.

Argo pouted as I pulled her away from her victim "Aww, let me have some fun, Kii-bou. He's just so much fun to tease that I can't help myself." I gave her a light rap on her head. "Come on Argo, tease him after he's recovered. In his current state your teasing is liable to reduce his HP and cause him to die. You don't want to kill a perfectly fine victim*COUGH* a-ahem, customer, do you?" Sinon rolled her eyes at our interaction and moved over to Klein. "Kirito's really the only one who can deal with her, I don't understand how he does it." Klein nodded emphatically at Sinon's comment.

"I heard that!" both of them cringed as a yell came from Argo. "Let's head back to the village already, Klein and his party need to rest. If we ran into another PK party we'd be in no situation to deal with them." The friendly banter between the three that had filled the area quickly died down as I brought them back to reality. A tired mood quickly filled the group once the adrenaline wore off, and we set off back to Horunka Village.

* * *

**Note: Sorry there was a bit of an info dump in the beginning of this chapter, but I hope that I managed to make up for that in the second half! Klein getting some more attention and the introduction of everyone's favorite info broker, Argo! I'm really not sure how much Argo will be in this story due to the plot being directed by our OC Isuca (who you haven't met yet, for anyone wondering if they missed anything) but i'd love to hit as much Argo into this story as i can because she's an absolutely amazing and utterly underrated character. Also i'll apologize in advance if Argo seems OOC, but that's because I have barely the slightest idea of how Argo actually acts, but hey! i'll at least give it a shot.**

**I'll attempt to release a chapter on both Saturday and Sunday, but no promises since i'll also be cleaning up the grammar and spelling on the past six chapters. ****Just remember that if anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, i'd be extremely grateful if you left me a review or shot me a pm!**

**Thanks for reading and hope to see you next chapter ;)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Note: Short chapter today, was pretty unmotivated to write this so the quality probably won't be as good as previous chapters. However stay tuned for the boss fight meeting and the boss fight, both of which I'm pretty darn hyped to write! With no further ado, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1

A month had already passed since the commencement of this living hell. Over two thousand players had died so far, either by suicide, idiocy, or overestimating their own abilities. Except for a small handful that stayed back, teaching and helping the new players, most of the beta testers ran off by themselves, monopolizing the best quests, hoarding the best hunting grounds, and some even going so far as to murder newbies that they came across.

Although Sinon and I certainly weren't among the beta testers who stayed back to help the majority of players, we certainly did more than our part; in fact, we probably did just as much as the players who stayed back, if not more than they did.

* * *

*fshh* a sword skill hissed over my head as I rolled under a backhand blow from a relatively small hand axe. Although the axe was small, I knew my HP would be reduced by at least 10% if it even so much as grazed me. There was a faint hissing noise and the «Ruin Kobold Trooper» staggered back, both of its eyes blinded by throwing picks that now protruded from them. Without missing a beat, I lunged at the immobilized monster with terrifyingly rapid 'Vertical Arc' which finished off the monster, causing it to explode and grant both me and Sinon quite generous amounts of EXP and Col.

"Phew, let's take a break from grinding by mapping out the remainder of the floor." Sinon nodded gratefully at my suggestion and pulled out her mapping tool. Thankfully mapping in this game was quite simple, as all it did was record the places you walk on a empty space. It could be quite confusing at times as all maps looked like were massive clumps of squiggly lines, but Sinon meticulously labeled all of her maps, so I left her to map. Not to mention that Sinon was the one who needed the rest the most, as I was able to grind non-stop for greater periods of time than most of the players in this game.

We were able to mostly relax while traveling as the only things in the first floor labyrinth that would attack without being aggressed were players, and orange players would usually target solo players. "Eep!" a small surprised squeak came from Sinon as she accidentally ran into my back. "What-" I cut her off as she began to ask why I'd stopped so suddenly, pointing out the reason. In front of us was a massive door covered in intricate carvings. "That's!-" I nodded at Sinon's surprised explanation. Excitement dispelled our previous tiredness as we finally saw the possibility of clearing the first floor. "Come on, let's get ready for the raid!" I turned to make my way back to turn, but a hand grabbing the collar of my armor rudely cut my excitement short.

"*cough* exactly what boss raid are you talking about, Kirito? You surely don't think we're going to duo this like we did in the beta." "a-ahh, uhm, no! Certainly not, nope, the thought definitely never crossed my mind!" I cringed slightly as my companion karate chopped my head. I shrunk even further in response to her glare. "I-I'll message Argo and get her to get someone to organize the raid. You know I'm bad at these things." Sinon smiled contentedly at my response, knowing her point had been made. "Haaa, I swear you'd be dead without me, Kirito." I bowed deeply to the girl. "Yes, indeed I owe my entire life to you, milady!" Sinon just punched my shoulder in response to my sarcastic comment. "Better work on that sarcasm, I bet people way back in the Town of Beginnings couldn't feel it." A pensive look covered my face at Sinon's retort. "Hmm, I better work on it then. I didn't think you'd be able to detect my sarcasm."

Sinon was unable to restrain her smile at this point and bumped her shoulder into me. "Come on, dummy, let's head back. You're going to set up the meeting for tomorrow, right?" I nodded in assent and opened my friends list to send a PM to Argo.

*cshh* Sinon and I were surprised to hear the sound of a monster dying as we descended to the 18th level of the labyrinth. We saw a cloaked figure with a rapier killing «Ruin Kobold Troopers» by using 'Linear' four times in succession on each monster. We admired the player's brilliantly fast movements against the dozen or so monsters they were surrounded by. The lone figure obviously had a reasonable level of skill while also outleveling the «Ruin Kobold Troopers» by at least two levels since they were able to dodge the majority of the attacks from the monsters while dealing significant damage.

A low cry came from the figure as their cloak was ripped off by an attack that wasn't entirely dodged. The player was revealed to be a beautiful girl with amber-colored hair and eyes of a slightly darker shade of the same color. An incredibly focused look filled the girl's eyes as her barely-visible hp bar dropped into the yellow. "Hey! We'll help you out!" I called out to the girl, offering my assistance the moment I noticed she was in danger. She turned to me with a grateful look and nodded.

Getting affirmation from the player, Sinon and I moved as a single entity, rapidly shredding through the remaining 8 «Ruin Kobold Troopers». The girl looked at me slightly mistrustfully when we cleared away the monsters, but relaxed once she saw the girl accompanying me. Sinon reached her hand out to the lone girl, introducing herself. "Hey, I'm Sinon, and this here's Kirito. You look quite exhausted, do you want some help getting back to town? We're both on our way back there so you can come with us if you like."

The beautiful girl simply shook her head, a cold, hard look in her eyes. "Thank you for your offer, but I'll continue where I am. I don't have time to laze around in the town." the girl was about to turn around and head farther into the labyrinth, but I stopped her with a question. Is this your first MMORPG you've played? She looked at me with renewed suspicion in her eyes. "Yes it is, may I ask how you know and what it is to you?" I unconsciously stepped back a tny bit from her overly cold manner before replying. "It's just that you're wasting a lot of effort and stamina by overkilling monsters. You can just finish it off with a basic attack instead of using 'Linear' a fourth time. And as for what it is to me, I just don't want to see any players dying."

The girl nodded, her expression softening slightly. "Thank you, I'll keep that in mind." she turned to leave again, but this time was stopped by my partner addressing her. "Hey, if this is your first MMORPG do you want some help? I'm a beta tester who specializes in light weapons like daggers and rapiers, so I think I can help you some." I saw her face harden as she heard the words "beta tester" but then relax a moment later as she realized that we couldn't be put in the same category as the ones who earned a bad name for beta testers due to the fact that we saved her.

I saw a small smile finally spread across her cold face as she responded to Sinon. "I'll gladly accept that offer as long as I won't be a burden, you did say you were on your way back to the town, didn't you?" "Ahhh…" Sinon visibly wilted at the recollection of our mission. I smiled at her reaction, briefly wondering why I found her disappointed reaction to be so cute. "Just trade me the map data and I'll take it to Argo, you can have fun with your newly found friend." She looked quite indignant when I accompanied my words with patting her head. It was an action I had grown accustomed to doing to Sugu, and at some point the habit translated over to Sinon.

The amber-haired girl gave a small giggle at our interaction and finally introduced herself. "My name is Asuna," she turned to Sinon as she continued. "I'll be in your care from now on. Thank you both for helping me out back there."

I started to head back to the town once I had received the map data from Sinon, but my steps were certainly slower than they could have been as I listened to the happy voice of the girl who had been my sole companion for several months now. '_I'm glad you're able to make a friend other than me, even if it's a brief friendship with someone you just met.' _But for some reason, as I heard Sinon talking in a happier tone than I'd heard talk in a long time, I started to feel slightly lonely; an emotion I'd never felt before in my entire life.

* * *

"Kii-bou!" I felt a massive impact against my back as a small girl traveling at what must have been close to mach 3 clung onto my back. I did my best to remain unperturbed as I addressed the small blonde now clinging to my back after her typical overly enthusiastic greeting. "Hey Argo, perfect timing. Were you waiting for me?" Without waiting for her response, I opened up a trade window, transferring the promised map data to her.

"I'm surprised you didn't want to take any of the credit for this, Kii-bou." A small but clearly evil smile spread across her face. "I thought you'd want the proud name of the Black Swordsman to spread as far as possible!" I facepalmed at the teasing manner of the small girl. "Oh please, anything but that. Jeez I hate that name, makes me sound like some edgy chunnI or something." Argo laughed gleefully at getting exactly the reaction she wanted.

Finished with teasing me for the moment, Argo's face grew more serious as she continued to the topic of our meeting. "There's a strong party that I gave the boss room info to, so they'll be the ones leading both the meeting and the boss raid, if that's fine with you." "sounds good to me, if you trust them it's fine with me. But one more thing." I swiped down with my right hand, opening my menu and navigating to the "NerveGear" section, where I withdrew a document that I had downloaded to the internal storage of my helmet what felt like years ago.

"Here's the info for the First Floor boss. I'd appreciate it if you could add that to the beginners handbook before the meeting." A soft smile spread across the small girl's face, a sharp contrast to the usual teasing or impertinent smile that was her usual expression when dealing with me. "You really care about the other players, don't you Kirito?" I was even more surprised when Argo asked a question in a gentler tone than I've ever heard her use. I blushed slightly at her compliment, but shook my head. "I just want to clear this game and get back to the real world, and this is the most effective way to do that."

Unconsciously I lightly patted Argo's head, an expression she seemed to surprisingly enjoy. She gave me a smile, a real one, as she turned away. As she left to do her part of organizing the boss fight, I could have sworn I heard her softly mutter something. But by the time I tried to ask her what she said, she was already gone.

* * *

"Aaahh…" I stretched out on my bed in the room that Sinon and I were renting from an NPC. '_Geez, why did the Kayaba have to add physical exhaustion to this game. The mental drain is already bad enough, but at least he didn't skimp on the treatment of players.' _I glanced around, absentmindedly admiring the large room that we were currently residing in. It was over twice the size of the rooms that you could rent at the inn, but significantly cheaper than renting two rooms. Normally it'd be weird to share a room with a girl my age, but being trapped in a game world had thrown a lot of common sense out the window, and honestly we were usually too tired to care. It may have been different if the room was smaller or there was only one bed, but the room was large enough to comfortable fit both of us.

The bed was so comfortable to my tired body and mind that before I knew it, I had slipped into the dark and peaceful world of dreams.

* * *

**Note: I'll do my best to make the next chapter as awesome as it is playing out in my head, so I hope you'll enjoy it! the next chapter will be the Floor Boss fight meeting, during which I'll finally introduce the last member of the cast: Isuca!**

**Quick reminder that if anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, i'd be extremely grateful if you left me a review or shot me a pm!**

**Thanks for reading and hope to see you next chapter ;)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Note: Phew, this chapter was far more work than I expected. I even ended up rewriting most of the chapter from scratch because there was too much that I wasn't satisfied with. I hope you all enjoy it!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1

"AAAAAAAAAAAGHNOSTOPNO!" I literally shot out of bed as a bloodcurdling scream tore through the silent curtain of the night. It took me a few moments to get my bearings as I was disoriented from being so abruptly and unceremoniously removed from my sleep, but when I managed to recall that I was in the room that Sinon and I were renting from an NPC, I was able to discover the source of the horrible sound that separated me from my beloved sleep.

In the bed several meters away from mine, a figure was sitting bolt upright. She turned her face toward me and I saw something gleam on her face. The faint moonlight coming in the window fell softly on Sinon's face, reflecting off of the tears that streamed down her cheeks. My chest tightened and I felt an indescribable pain at the expression on her face that showed nothing but pure and unadulterated terror.

Entirely at a loss of what to do, I just sat down on the bed next to the uncontrollably sobbing girl and wrapped my arms around her. My chest tightened even more as I wished I could do something more for her, fully aware that there was nothing I could do.

After several long minutes, the girl in my arms started to calm down slightly. I continued to stroke her hair as her sobs turned to small occasional hiccups and her breathing went from erratic to slow and regulated.

I hugged her tighter. "I told you before, I'm not going to ask, but I'll be here if you ever want someone to talk to. After all, you're my best friend, Shino." I felt a warmth around my sides as she slipped her arms around me in response to my comforting words. "Please… just stay here for a bit. Everything will be perfectly fine and back to normal in the morning, but please. Just stay here for now…"

After several minutes I felt the small figure in my arms relax entirely as she managed to find peace in slumber. I continued to stroke her hair even after she fell asleep, but surprise caused me to stop for a moment, for I saw a small, contented smile on her face; something that seemed entirely out of place on a girl who had been crying in fear just moments before.

A few minutes later, I noted with equal surprise that, without my knowing, somehow her smile had spread to my face.

* * *

I glanced up at the clock in the top left corner of my HUD. 10:05. '_The meeting was supposed to start 5 minutes ago and none of the hosts are here, just great. Oh jeez, don't tell me Argo is trying to get me up there myself.' _thankfully that notion was quickly dispelled when a blue-haired man wearing the strongest metal armor on floor 1 walked into the center of the amphitheatre that was the designated meeting place.

"Thank you all for coming here. Let me introduce myself, my name is Diavel, and my class is…" he threw his arm across his chest, pounding the area of his heart with a clenched fist, which made a satisfying *clunk* against the bright metal of his armor. "...Knight!" a few laughs burst out from the crowd at this faintly ostentatious display. A few yells rang out from the 60 or so people gathered. "There's no class system in this game!" "first you're late and now you're making jokes about a class? Is this entire meeting a joke?" He raised his hand, quieting the crowd. "Yesterday, on the 20th floor of the labyrinth, my party discovered the boss room.

I saw anger start to smolder in my partner's eyes at him claiming credit for our achievement. I placed my hand on her leg, attempting to calm her down with physical touch. Admittedly, I wasn't too happy about his openly lying about discovering the boss room, but as I assumed it was something that Argo told him to do, I was able to quickly suppress my faint displeasure.

"Due to the difficulty level of the boss, I'll only allow players with a level of 11 or higher to participate in this raid. While I highly commend your courage in being willing to assist in clearing this game, we want to avoid all deaths if possible." He paused for a few moments as over a dozen players left the amphitheatre; some disappointed, but most with a mixed look of disappointment and relief.

In the brief moments of relative silence my mind couldn't help but wander to the events of the previous night. Multiple times I was on the verge of believing that the entire thing had been a dream because Sinon was acting normal, but every once in a while I would catch her faintly blushing for no visible reason.

"Now let us continue the strategy meeting." Diavel opened his inventory as he was talking, but was quite taken aback as a short figure jumped into the center in front of him. "Wait a minute! Let ME talk. My name is Kibaou and I have a bone to pick with some of you out there." A short man with spiky hair and a gruff voice started talking over Diavel. "I believe there are some people out here who should be APOLOGIZING to us normal players! Yes I'm talking to you damned beta testers! You ran and monopolized all the best quests and hunting grounds, leaving us normal players behind in the dirt!"

His face turned red and I swear he was on the verge of an aneurysm as he began to scream. "IT WAS YOUR FAULT THAT TWO THOUSAND PLAYERS DIED! YOU BETTER GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND OFFER UP ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT AND DROPS AND HOPE WE SPARE YOU! YOU WILL PAY RECOMPENSE FOR-" his screaming tirade was cut off my an item I never expected to see in this game. An arrow whizzed past Kibaou's nose, abruptly ending his rant. A cloaked figure stood up, holding in their hand a short recurve bow.

I glanced at the girl next to me and saw a shocked expression on her face that perfectly mirrored the expression on mine at the sight of the weapon. The two of us had cleared nearly 33 floors during the beta and hadn't seen a single hint of a bow, even on the floors where there were elves. The overly angry man quickly regained his composure after remembering that he couldn't be damaged in a safe zone. "And who the hell are you?" the figure removed their hood, revealing a tall, black-haired girl maybe three years older than me. Her height was enough to make her abnormal, but what truly set her apart were her eyes. Heterochrome eyes, one dark crimson, one burning gold; a chilling countenance that seemed to passively emit so called "killing intent".

Even the obviously thick-skinned Kibaou couldn't remain unfazed under a glare that made him feel like his life was in mortal danger. "You don't deserve to know my name." She slung her bow across her back and slowly walked down the steps, in contrast to Kibaou, who had leapt down all the stairs in a single jump. " You complain about the beta testers? Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you're weak isn't their fault, but your own? Fairness, equality, and even equity are nothing but a lie. The real world does its best to hide this fact, but in this world it's painfully obvious. Nothing exists here except for the law of the jungle: The strong grow stronger and the weak become nothing but prey for the strong."

By the time she reached the end of her cold and cynical speech, the girl had reached the furious man and stood, towering over him. Normally it would be an amusing sight to see a powerfully built man shrink in front of a girl, but in this case it seemed the furthest thing from out of place.

"The beta testers are human, just like us. There exists no man who helps another without aiming for personal gain, and in my mind, those who are perceived as altruistic are far more terrifying than those who are openly greedy." The moment the girl spoke those words, for just a moment I could have sworn I saw an ugly look appear on the noble face of Diavel, but it was gone so quickly that I couldn't help but think it was my imagination fueled by my lingering ill-feeling against him.

The coldness seemed to dissipate from the atmosphere in an instant once the girl shifted her attention away from Kibaou and sat down off to the side. Before Diavel was able to resume talking, a dark skinned, powerfully built man stood up. In contrast to the previous fiery Kibaou and icy girl, he seemed to emanate a powerful aura of calm, like a rock in the middle of a sea. When he spoke, his voice mirrored his build and aura as he began talking in a deep and smooth tone.

"The name's Agil, and I'd like all people who think the beta testers abandoned us to make a note of something. Take a look at this book." He held up a thick brown book as he spoke. "This is available for free in any NPC shop in the Town of Beginnings. If you look at the names in the front of the book, you'll see the names Argo, Kirito, Sinon, Daki, Himeku, Eshonai, and more. All of these are the names of beta testers who worked together to help new players adjust to the game. If players died without reading this, their death is truly on their own heads."

The man then turned to Diavel, bowing in apology. "I'm sorry for the interruption, please continue." Diavel coughed once before continuing his speech. "In this book that was just mentioned by Agil, there is a newly updated section, provided by the beta testers, with the information of the first floor boss. It's name is «Illfang the Kobold Lord» and it surrounds itself with Elite monsters called «Ruin Kobold Sentinels», the Elite version of «Ruin Kobold Troopers»."

"I'd like everyone to split up into parties of six with at least three vanguards per party." His eyes seemed to flick to me as he continued. "Parties with under 6 players or with less than three vanguards will be assigned to killing the «Ruin Kobold Sentinels».

Just as everyone was beginning to party up with the players around them, a certain amber-haired girl came and sat down next to Sinon, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "D-did I miss anything?" Asuna asked, letting out a yawn. "Nah, nothing much." Sinon said, patting the girl on her back. "Just a midget having an aneurysm, a scary girl almost impaling said midget on an arrow, the two of us having our names read from the starter's manual, and us getting ostracized from the group. That last one is pretty normal though."

The girl was clearly still half asleep as she responded. "Oh ok, good-waitwhat?" she did a double-take as what Sinon said finally registered with her, but she was prevented from asking any further by a mostly emotionless voice coming from a few seats down. "Kirito, would you be willing to let me enter your party for this boss fight?" I looked down in surprise at my name unexpectedly being called, and saw, to my surprise, that the scary girl who had given the pro-beta tester speech was addressing me by name.

I glanced at Sinon, silently asking for her input. '_Should we let her in? I've never seen a bow in this game. It'll definitely make our team far more flexible.' _"sounds good." Asuna looked at Sinon curiously wondering why she had murmured something quietly after making eye contact with me. Sinon then shot me a look that clearly asked '_How did she recognize your name though?' _"If I may ask, how did you know my name?" I first got Sinon's nonverbal request out of the way.

A slightly confused look broke the girl's cold features for a moment at my question. "I'm… not entirely sure, I just thought I'd seen you somewhere and that name popped into my head as I saw your face." She pointed between me and Sinon. "I just thought I recognized you two from somewhere." At this point Asuna cut into our conversation, pointing at me. "Hold up a second, did you and Sinon literally just communicate telepathically or something?" Sinon and I shrugged, saying in unison "of course we didn't." Asuna just giggled at our perfect sync.

After responding to Asuna's brief interruption, I turned back to the girl requesting to join our party. "Well it's not really any big matter. Adding an archer to our lineup would increase our options by a lot." I opened my menu and sent her a party invite. When the party invite window popped up in front of her she hesitated slightly before pressing the accept button.

I glanced up to the top left corner of my HUD where a fourth HP bar was now displayed. 'Isuca'. I reached out and shook the girl's hand. "Welcome aboard, Isuca. Let's clear this floor together." She nodded. "I look forward to working with you three." Although she never once smiled, she said that last sentence in a tone so close to friendly that I realized that I had been to hasty in judging her. I assumed she was a cold, cruel, and callous person, but on seeing the nearly happy expression on her face, I realized she was simply someone who had difficulty expressing emotion.

"Everyone partied up?" our attention was directed back to Diavel in the center. "Standard raid distribution, we'll leave it up to the system to decide who gets what. Boss drops are distributed randomly by the system, items go to whoever they drop for, and EXP and Col are distributed based on contribution. I'll be your raid leader with Sarla here" he motioned to a girl from his party who was standing behind him. "Will be the backup leader in case anything goes wrong. Any questions?

I stood up and raised my hand. "What raid strategy and dynamic will we be using?" Diavel nodded at my question. "Good question, we'll be using the simple 'switch and pot' strategy. I'll be directing the movement of the squads as a whole while each squad's leader will manage the smaller details of their squad." I sat back down, contented with his response. '_He seems to know what he's doing and is quite charismatic. I knew Argo wouldn't recommend someone without a good reason.'_

However, I still couldn't brush aside the strange feeling that something was off. '_Kibaou's hatred toward beta testers, Isuca's harsh response, Agil trying to calm everyone, but Diavel just standing back and doing nothing… something just feels off here.'_

* * *

Later that evening, Sinon and I were walking through the shop area of the town when we came across a pair that we never would have expected to see together. Coming toward us was a red-haired man wearing a bandana walking alongside a certain cold heterochrome girl. "Kirito! Sinon! Long time no see you two!" on catching sight of me, Klein immediately left the side of his companion and ran over to us.

"Hey Klein, what's up man?" we briefly grasped hands in greeting and he slightly awkwardly waved to Sinon. I chuckled at his obvious nervousness at greeting a girl. "Still don't have a girlfriend? You walk along the street with a girl and make me think you managed to trick someone into dating you. Seriously so misleading man." Klein slapped me on the back a little harder than necessary in response to my joke. Possibly it hit a little too close to home. I then nodded at Isuca, finally greeting her. She tilted her head slightly in response. "Hello, Kirito, Sinon." I turned back to Klein who watched our interaction with a curious look. "You two know Isuca?" I nodded at him with a slight laugh. "Ha, I was just going to ask you the same thing."

We were cut off from any further conversation by Isuca interjecting. "Klein, these are the people I was just telling you about." I saw a look of relief cross his face as she said that. "Oh thank god, I almost killed Isuca when I heard she had joined the boss raid, in an incomplete party too." while saying this, Klein tried to put his hand on Isuca's shoulder, but failed miserably because she swayed very slightly to the left, perfectly dodging his hand. After fumbling slightly, he caught himself and continued speaking. "Isuca here is the newest member of my guild, Fuurinkazan. Take care of her, Kirito."

"Of course, I won't let a party member of mine die. You can count on me." I looked Klein in the eye seriously as I said that and he nodded with a small relieved exhale of breath. It wasn't obvious, but I could see the relief in his face at my promise. '_His face aside, he's really a nice guy who cares for his friends.'_

The serious mood was broken by a small smug smile on Sinon's face "hmm? I thought the guild system was only unlocked after a certain quest on the 3rd floor was completed?" Klein wilted slightly at Sinon's comment, but soon regained his composure and struck what I assume was supposed to be a noble pose, but it more looked like he was trying to find a bird while his facial expression make it seem like he was constipated. "A guild doesn't exist in a game, it exists in all of our hearts. True friendship and-what is your problem?"

Sinon and I were unable to retain our composure as Klein attempted to give a touching speech about comrades in arms, but his awkward pose and overly dramatic voice just made the entire situation hilarious. Even Isuca started to smile slightly at the absurdity of her guild leader. Klein coughed and stopped his speech, trying to retain the little dignity he had left. "Well I'll leave you three alone to discuss… whatever you have to discuss. I need to meet with Dale to discuss plans for tomorrow. Sorry we're not all taking part in the raid, but four of the 11 members of the guild are only levels 9 and 10."

Once Klein had disappeared from sight, the three of us sat down on one of the benches that littered the side of the road. Sinon leaned over to Isuca, asking the obvious question. "So where on earth did you get your bow? Kirito and I reached the highest floor possible in the beta but never once saw a hint of a bow." A look of pure confusion crossed the girl's normally apathetic face. "What do you mean? I just selected it as my starting weapon." Sinon and I looked at her suspiciously, knowing that there was definitely no bow in the starting weapons.

The only expression she revealed was her hands clenching as she said "Please believe me… the truth is…" A pained expression crossed her face. "I can't remember anything before I entered this game. I can remember ideas and concepts and I obviously received a good amount of learning from the real world, but I have no specific memories from the real world. I don't remember selecting the bow as my starting weapon, but I started with it in my inventory.,"

'_Amnesia. Huh. It partially makes sense, but how would she have had a bow?' _Thoughts of all that seemed off about this game flashed through my head, events too many to count. I was broken from my reverie by Sinon poking my cheek, an annoying yet effective gesture that I did to her any time she wasn't focusing or was lost in her thoughts. "Oh sorry. That's certainly a unique story, but it's believable. There's a lot of things that seem off about this game, so adding the mystery of the bow to that list won't make that that much longer."

"As for your amnesia…" the two girls looked on earnestly as I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts before saying two words. "FullDive Non-conformity." I sighed in aggravation seeing that both of them had identical blank looks on their faces. "Geez, I thought that was common knowledge for people here." Sinon hit my shoulder, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, now can you get off your high horse and explain what the heck a fulldive conformity or whatever is?"

"Yeah, alright. A FullDive Non-conformity is a situation where someone is either incompatible with the NerveGear itself or they just calibrated it faultily. In minor cases this can cause slight twitching or discomfort while moving, and in major cases it can prevent the use of the NerveGear entirely. Although I've never heard of it, it's entirely possible that an incompatibility can cause amnesia.

Isuca let out a small breath, apparently in relief that I believed her story. I stretched backward, putting my hands behind my head. "Well, it's no big deal. You're a nice person and your bow is freaking awesome, so I have no complaints." I glanced at Sinon, who smiled back at me before addressing Isuca. "Of course I have no complaints either. I was simply curious because I was thinking about getting myself a bow if it was from a hidden quest or something that you were willing to share with me. Welcome to the team, Isuca." Sinon reached out her hand, a happy smile on her face.

We sat for a few more minutes engaging in idle conversation. Before we had finished, I noticed that the moon had risen in the sky, bathing us in silvery light. '_A bow. Maybe it's something like my own [Single-Handed Wielding]. Either way it's only something to be glad about. Let's clear this damn game already._

As I pondered on these matters I noticed an unlikely pair, discussing something in the shadows. Kibaou and Diavel. I dismissed it from my mind as they seemed to quickly part, as if it were nothing but a chance meeting.

* * *

**So we finally have our entire cast introduced! There should be a lot more action now that most of the events are set up, so I'll probably only be able to release 2-3 chapters per week. From this point on the plot will start to deviate substantially from the canon, so I'm really looking forward to writing it, and I hope that you'll enjoy it! There will also be more into the characters of Klein, Argo, and Isuca, along with occasional KiritoxSinon moments like the beginning of this chapter. Remember that this is my first story I've written so I'm dealing with a lot of unfamiliar ground here. **

**If anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, I'd be extremely grateful if you left me a review or shot me a pm!**

**Thanks for reading and hope to see you next chapter ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Note: So this chapter will mark a turning point in this fanfic. From this point on there will be certain events (such as the fight with titan's hand and the safezone murders) that are from the canon, but the main storyline will have barely anything to do with the canon from now on. The grammar and overall writing should be a lot cleaner than usual in this chapter as I had a good friend help me out with it. This chapter was loads of fun to write, so I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 1 Labyrinth

There was a soft *chunk* as a sword appeared on my back. '_Come on, why did you have to make the durability system in this game so darn realistic, Kayaba.' _Not for the first time, I cursed at the creator of this game. All around me 52 people were mirroring my action, unequipping their reserve weapon and equipping their main.

For the purpose of realism, all weapons damage decreased slightly as the item's durability decreased. Normally this wouldn't be an issue as any raid party would have a blacksmith to repair players weapons before the raid, but player blacksmiths and other production classes such as tailors or carpenters would only start appearing on floor three.

We had just fought through the 20 floors of the labyrinth and were resting in preparation to enter the boss room when I caught sight of Diavel and Kibaou happily chatting together with several other members of the raid. This sight made me recall the events of this morning.

* * *

FLASHBACK

I was woken up painfully early by a knock on the door of the room that Sinon and I were staying in. Sinon simply groaned sleepily and put her pillow over her head, leaving me to get the door. '_I swear that girl is impossible to wake up,' _I thought with a sigh as I got out of bed and answered the door, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes as much as possible. '_The realism of this game is seriously incredible. It's just as hard to wake up in this game as it is in reality.' _I stopped for a moment, wondering why exactly I found that incredible instead of annoying, but I was too tired to figure it out.

I was about to go back to bed, but the renewed knocking on the door made me recall why exactly I had gotten out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am. I opened the door and was met by a remarkably short blonde girl who was far too perky for this time of day. "Kii-bouu~ rise and shine my darling, you're letting valuable daylight go to waste~!" I glared at Argo balefully and flicked her forehead in response to her overly cheerful greeting delivered in a sickeningly singsong voice. "You better have a good reason for waking me up or else I'll tell everyone I come across that you're giving out free information all day today." Argo just pouted at my cold threat and assumed a facial expression as if I just kicked a puppy.

It probably would have worked on just about anyone else, but I would have kicked even the cutest puppy in the universe if it woke me up at 5 in the freaking morning. I rapped my knuckles on Argo's head, trying to get her to spit her information out as fast as she could so I could get an hour or two more sleep. Her pout deepened. I rapped my knuckles harder. This continued for about 5 seconds until the small girl finally backed out of attack range and got down to business.

"All right, all right. A certain player contacted me last night and asked to buy your ««Anneal Blade»». He said to name your price and he'll take it" My eyes narrowed in suspicion at this information. '_Could someone possibly be targeting me, or is it just someone wanting to increase their chances at surviving the boss raid?' _I shook my head at that last thought. The attack bonus a stronger sword would provide would do nothing to aid in one's survival during the raid. Mystified, I asked Argo the obvious question.

"Who wanted to buy it?" Argo said nothing but gave me a smug smile and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together in the universal gesture for payment. I sighed and transferred 1,000 Col to her. She smiled happily as she accepted the payment and answered my question, "A certain player participating in the boss raid named Kibaou wanted to buy it." I sighed at the mention of the midget who's personality perfectly matched his spiky hair. "Of course I'm not selling, I thought you knew me well enough to tell him that."

Argo nodded. "I do, and I did tell him that. I figured I'd just let you know." I glared at her in response to her innocent tone. "So did you honestly wake me up expressly for the purpose of saying that you'd turned down a guy who wanted to buy my sword?" Argo thankfully shook her head, dispensing of the necessity of killing her for disrupting my sleep for no good reason. Argo glanced behind me at Sinon. I imitated her motion just in time to be hit clean in the face by a pillow that sleeping beauty threw at me. "You two go flirt somewhere else and let me sleep." A muffled voice came from the bed in the back of the room where Sinon had pulled her covers over her head and was hiding from either the sunlight, me, Argo, or humanity as a whole. Or some combination of the four.

Either way, Argo and I stepped out of the room before Sinon decided to attack us. We walked outside and sat on the lawn of the house. Argo progressively became more and more tense as we left the house, and by the time we sat down she was visibly uncomfortable. "Hey Argo, are you okay?" She nodded rather vehemently, but it was painfully obvious that she was not ok. I lightly stroked her head in a calming gesture that I'd previously used on both Sinon and Sugu with great success.

The small girl jumped slightly at my touch but relaxed slightly as I stroked her head a few times. She took a breath and began what she came here to say. "I don't know, but I may have made a mistake. The reason I'm here is to talk to you about my brother."

END FLASHBACK

* * *

I was abruptly torn from my recollection of this morning by the faint crashing noise of a scabbard striking the ground. Diavel was standing in front of the boss room door with both hands placed on the pommel of his sheathed greatsword that was planted pointfirst in the ground.

"Listen up! Soon we'll be entering the boss room. Today we will clear this boss without a single death and prove to all the others players stuck in this game that it can and WILL be beaten! This is far more than a raid to clear a single floor, this is a mission of hope! We will be the beacons of hope that shine for the players who've lost theirs! THIS IS THE FIRST FIGHT TO TAKE BACK OUR WORLD!"

As we finished resting, Diavel gave a rousing speech that seemed to pump everyone up. I must admit that even I got goosebumps as he spoke. The overly dramatic final line of his speech elicited laughs from some, but succeeded in creating the rousing finale any encouraging speech should give.

All around me I could feel the emotions of the people running high. Courage, purpose, resolve. All these feelings were filling the air around me, but there was a single emotion that scared me because of its enormous presence. Confidence.

Diavel had said certainly that we would clear this with no casualties, but I knew that wouldn't be the case. Confidence was good in certain quantities, but overconfidence had killed more than anything else in this game; and overconfidence seemed to be exactly what he just instilled in some of them.

Everyone got into a formation with their party as Diavel started to open the door. I stepped forward, taking the lead. Sinon and Asuna were slightly behind me, the former flanking my left and the latter on my right. Isuca brought up the rear and would stay there for the entire fight as she would provide ranged support with her bow.

A familiar dark room slowly came into sight. Sinon and I briefly made eye contact and I knew she was remembering the first time we entered the room. That the two of us killed this boss by ourselves before even the strongest raid team during the beta could. I reached out my left hand to her and she grasped it with her right. I squeezed her hand and looked her in the eye. '_Be careful, Sinon. We don't know what could happen.' _She nodded, and I seriously began to wonder if we actually had some mental telepathy ability like Asuna thought we did.

We released each others' hands and lowered our bodies into combat stances as the lights suddenly came on with blinding brightness. "Assault squads forward! Squads **G** and **H **target the Sentinels! Squad **I** stay as backup, ready to support any squad that needs help!" ""Roger!"" Both I and the leader of squad **H** responded affirmatively as we lead our parties along either flank toward the masses of «Ruin Kobold Sentinels»

*fwishoch* an arrow flew across the gap between us and the ranks of Sentinels as Isuca began to carry out our plan. Asuna stopped about 5 meters in front of Isuca, ready to provide support to her while Sinon and I continued to charge at the Sentinels that Isuca had pulled.

Our general plan was this: Isuca would draw the aggro and slightly reduce the hp of the Sentinels while Asuna protected her and Sinon and I dealt with the incoming monsters. Normally a ranged dps drawing agro would be stupid, but Sinon and I were confident in our ability to take the agro from Isuca.

Surprisingly enough, this plan worked perfectly. "Squads **H** and **I**, what are you doing? Keep the Sentinels off the main raid party!" Diavel yelled as squad **B** was forced to withdraw due to dangerously low hp. My party had systematically decimated the Sentinels on our side, but the other side was obviously not faring so well despite having over twice as many players as we did.

"Squad **G** assisting!" My party of four ran over to assist the group that was having difficulties against the Sentinels. I heard a small cry of horror and a sharp intake of breath behind me, and even my own teeth clenched as there was a shattering noise. However, this wasn't a monster. There were cries of despair from squad **I** as the first casualty of the raid happened.

Diavel was too busy directing the main raid groups to notice what just happened. "Squad **I** minus one!" Seeing no one else about to do so, I yelled the customary update. When they died, most people in MMORPGs would speak or type in chat, saying minus one and what role they played, but in this game they obviously couldn't do that. Death was real. This isn't a game anymore.

Even though I knew that death in this game was real, I hadn't yet seen someone die with my own eyes, so it never truly registered. I felt something shift in my head, the same feeling I had when everyone was panicking when the reality of this world was announced.

No, not quite the same feeling. This time it _clicked._ The feeling of calmness I'd felt in those fights back in the real world came to me again, but greater this time. It felt like the entire world slowed down around me. The illusion of time stopping was quickly shattered, but the feeling of calm remained.

I felt my movements become smoother, more streamlined. I sliced through a sentinel, surprised by the **fatal strike** notification that popped up. It was nearly impossible for even Sinon, who specialized in landing critical and fatal blows to land fatal strikes on the first floor, yet I somehow just did it. I knew something in me had changed, but what it was and whether it changed for good or bad I couldn't tell you.

Sooner than I expected, we managed to eliminate all the Sentinels and join up with the main raid group just as the third hp bar dropped to zero and the fourth and final hp bar lit up green. "groups **G**, **H**, and **I **are regrouping with main party!" the backup raid leader called to Diavel.

"Group **A** disengage, groups **G** and **H**, fill for **A**!" We ran toward the boss, Squad **H **blocking the boss' attack while we attempted to deal enough damage to take the agro from the recuperating squad **A**.

Due to the additional dps from the last 3 squads, it barely took 3 minutes of fighting to drop the final hp bar into the red. As soon as it hit red, the boss's eyes started to glow and it let out a horrible roar that made even Diavel lose his concentration. He recovered in less than a second, issuing orders to the terrified squads.

"Squads **C** and **G** flank left, squads **H** and **I** flank right! All other squads on me!" I immediately ran to the left, instinctively following the order of the man who had commanded the raid so perfectly. Despite myself, I started to feel excited that the raid was almost complete, but was viciously torn from this happy idea by a terrified scream from my only friend.

"KIRITO!" time seemed to stop again as I half turned to face the girl who yelled to me. The world was frozen as I took in the scene in front of me. Sinon, calling me, just barely too far to help, and «Illfang The Kobold Lord» lunging directly at me, a sword in his claws. '_No! That's not a talwar, that's a nodachi! _I dove out of the way, the nodachi only slightly grazing me instead of impaling me like it logically should have. "RUN! THE BOSS HAS A NODACHI, NOT A TALWAR!" I yelled at the squad near me, but my own squad was the only one that responded.

The boss landed mere inches away from me and swung it's nodachi in a massive circle. Grown men in squad C screamed in terror as they saw the grim reaper stare them in the eyes in the form of a nodachi. By some miracle I seemed to be in the eye of the storm. The boss let out a terrifying combo that shredded squad C, killing every single person. Most of the raid was in shock and some even ran directly out of the boss room in fear.

"Sinon! On me! We need to finish this!" But at that moment I noticed Diavel with an ugly look on his face. It'd be normal to have an ugly look of some sort on your face if an order of yours just got half a dozen people killed, but I couldn't help but feel that wasn't the reason. "Squad **G** regroup, we need to group up before we launch another attack." "the boss is between us, I can't make it back!" I tried to yell in response to Diavel but then almost swore at him because I was finally aware of what he wanted.

He wanted me dead, and if my squad died along with me, so much the better.

"Sinon. We do like as usual. I always knew parties and raid groups were just BS." She nodded with a cold look, having come to the same realization of Diavel's plan that I had.

During the beta, floor bosses respawned every day at midnight, but there was a fact known only to Sinon and I, the people who cleared every single boss for the first time during the beta.

The first floor bosses were far stronger than the ones that spawned after the boss was defeated for the first time, but they also followed the rule of "the brighter the light, the darker the shadow". In other words, the stronger the boss, the deadlier its weak point. I prayed that the boss's physique was the same as in the beta as we gambled everything on a single joint strike.

The boss charged at me, giving my partner just the opening she needed. She leapt at the boss's left shoulder, striking the midpoint between the shoulder and the neck with the sword skill 'Bloody Orbit', the downgraded version of 'Piercing Orbit'; a skill that increases damage dealt to weak points within the circle.

Sinon then struck it with the highest damage sword skill she had, drawing it's agro to her. I'd purposely dealt extremely low damage to the boss so that she could draw the agro, turning it's back to me. I paused for a second as I concentrated, knowing I'd have to hit a spot smaller than the head of a pin to pull this off. The nerve cluster in its shoulder; the only point that could deal fatal damage to the boss.

I mentally counted down the 5 seconds that the effect from 'Bloody Orbit' lasted.

5\. Sinon took agro.

4\. I concentrated, remembering the exact point of the nerve cluster.

3\. In my mind, I moved through the motion of stabbing the nerve cluster a thousand times.

2\. My sword glowed with a black light as I reversed my grip on it and leapt up toward the back of the boss.

1\. My feet struck the back of the boss, giving me the foothold to thrust my sword down.

0\. The instant before the bonus damage effect expired, I thrust perfectly into the nerve cluster, activating the assassin type sword skill: 'Fatal Burst'.

The chaotic scene halted instantly, the death of the boss turning the entire room quieter than a cemetery.

Classic oldschool RPG music filled the room as a massive **CONGRATULATIONS **appeared where I had killed the boss. A moment later, everyone in the room burst into cheering. Sinon and I collapsed into a sitting position a couple meters away from each other and looked at each other with a grin, a feeling of euphoria filling us at surviving a seemingly fatal situation.

Our relieved and happy mental state was suddenly shattered by a cry from the main group. "Why did you let them die! You obviously knew that the boss was different than listed in the manual. You even dealt far more damage than was possible! You darn beta testers, you're all the same! Letting people die or killing them off so you can hoard everything! "

During Kibaou's rant I attempted to look Diavel in the eye, but failed as he put his head in his hands. To some it would look like we was wallowing in despair, but I could see simple look of disappointment on his face. '_Disappointment because his plan failed.'_ As I saw this, Argo's warning and all of the events leading up to now clicked into place.

'_Kibaou wanted to buy my sword, but the true buyer was Diavel trying to prevent me from dealing as much damage in this raid, probably specifically aiming to prevent me from gaining the LAB. When that plan failed, he attempted to use the boss to kill me, taking advantage of the fact he realized that the boss used a nodachi.' _My teeth clenched as I realized his cruel brilliance. '_And if that failed in killing me, the death of the players around me would discredit and turn everyone present against me.'_

'_So in the end your goal is to get rid of the most dangerous beta testers so you can be your own god in this game? Screw that. And screw you, Diavel.'_

I stood up and walked over to the man. The crowd split as I approached him, murmuring as they did so, debating the possibilities of Kibaou's claim. I stood close to Diavel, closer than politeness dictated, as I said, "It was my pleasure to raid with you, _Diavel._" There was a sharp iciness in my tone that seemed to ratify Kibaou's claims, but in reality was for the purpose of telling Diavel I'd play right along and beat him at his own devilish game.

At my words there was an uproar in the crowd, yelling for my blood. The cry died out as an unearthly noise filled the room. A maniacal and sinister laughter, far more terrifying than anything I ever thought myself capable of was emanating from my mouth. "Oh please, don't call me a beta tester, Kibaou-_chan. _That's simply an insult to my abilities." I turned my back to the crowd as I slowly began to walk toward the door that lead to the next floor. "Most beta testers were trash, nearly as bad as you are." A cold chuckle escaped my lips. "Honestly it amazes me that so few people died during this raid, your skill level is leagues below what mine was when I challenged it."

I couldn't help but glance at the three players I had partied up with for this raid. Asuna was visibly shocked and had a pained look on her face as she thought she'd been betrayed and used by a party member. Isuca slightly surprised me with the calculating look that was on her face, I guess she was far more perceptive than I had assumed. The person who truly shocked me was Sinon. Of all the looks that could be on her face at this moment, the expression she assumed was the farthest from what I would guess would cross her countenance at this moment.

If I had to describe her expression in a single word, that word would have to be affection. But my heart clenched as the girl's face morphed into an expression closely resembling the expression I assumed to be on my face. Before the crowd could register all that I said, Sinon approached me and leaned on me, wrapping her arms around me. "Hmm, I'm sure there are at least a few beta testers out there that would recognize us if you really thought about it."

'_Sinon! What are you doing!? You can live normally here; you didn't have to join me! I was the only person that Diavel was targeting.' _I winced as she drove her fingers into my side, showing that she got the gist of my nonverbal question and was mad at me for asking it.

I mentally shrugged, knowing that there was no stopping the girl. My mind worked overtime to readjust my hastily prepared speech to work with my partner. "Of course," I began, "There's no one in the beta who hasn't heard of the pair who got the first clear on every single floor boss: the Black Swordsman and the Phantom Blade." At this revelation, the Beta tester's reactions were indistinguishable from normal players. The Beta testers were shocked at the names revealed and the normal players were surprised by the fact that 32 bosses, each meant to be raided by 25 to 50 people, were cleared by two players even before a full raid party could defeat them.

Predictably, the one to take the bait I just laid out was Kibaou. "Wh-what on earth? You're not just a beta tester, you're just straight up a cheater! A beta tester and a cheater, a beater!" I gave the evilest smile I could and opened my menu. "Yeah, that's right. Don't confuse us with those scrubs." I equipped the coat I got as the LAB. the very same ««Coat of Midnight»» that I received in the beta.

"Please, wait!" an amber haired girl called after us pleadingly. Sinon turned around while I continued walking, albeit slowing down slightly. "Are you two really being honest? You aren't people who'd commit murder for personal gain!" I finally stopped and gave Asuna a sad look. "Asuna, this world isn't what it seems and is certainly not forgiving. Never take anyone at face value, not even yourself."

Isuca walked up behind Asuna, and I was shocked to see a kind smile on the face of the usually cold girl. "You truly are the light burning in the dead of the night. I look forward to working with you again, Midnight Sun." Due to the necessity of keeping up the bad guy act, Sinon and I were forced to turn back and ascend to the second floor, wondering about Isuca's cryptic wording.

* * *

**Note: In the note at the beginning of this chapter, when I said that I'd be deviating from the canon, I REALLY meant it. So we now have Diavel as a villain, Isuca being enigmatic as usual, and a plot that is about to turn way more complicated than the original SAO!**

**The ideas I was trying to get across in this chapter were a little too complicated for my amateur writing skills, so below this note I'll give a quick rundown on the ideas I tried to tell in this chapter as well as some less clear parts of the game system.**

**If anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, I'd be extremely grateful if you left me a review or shot me a pm!**

**Thanks for reading and hope to see you next chapter ;)**

In a nutshell, Diavel's plan was to eliminate the beta testers that he knew the identity of. (I'll go more into detail of why he wanted to do that next chapter) Kirito claimed the title of beater to try to distract Diavel from killing all the other beta testers by making himself to be the greatest danger to Diavel so that he'd be targeted.

GAME SYSTEM: Keeping with the more realistic system of the game, critical strikes work differently. Certain areas of a body have a system known as the **Critical Radius** that, when hit, will result in a critical strike that deals bonus damage depending on how close to the center of the **Critical Radius** the attack is. The dexterity (DEX) stat increases the size of the critical radius, making it easier to land critical hits. Fatal blows are simply the stronger version of critical hits, dealing far more damage than normal critical hits (crits). Fatal blows are dealt by hitting the center of the **Critical Radius**. Increasing the DEX stat also increases the size of the fatal blow zone.


	11. Teasers

**Note: Hey people! Sorry I haven't been releasing anything lately, been caught up in a lot of stuff. Chapter 11 is in progress but will still take a while to release, so I decided to post a few "teasers" of scenes from upcoming chapters. The story will still mostly be told from Kirito's perspective, but due to some things I have planned, some events will be told from others perspectives. So here we go! I hope this will keep you all interested ;)**

* * *

Kirito's POV

'_He's far stronger than me. But, similar to Argo, his greatest strength is his knowledge, and I can exploit that.' I _leapt back, disengaging from the blade lock, "You want to see my true power? Be careful what you ask for." I kept up the facade of being a proud jerk as I had through the entire game, but my opponent just smiled complacently as if he knew what was hiding under the facade. '_Just wait, I'll wipe that smug smile off your face a thousand times over.' _

I opened my menu, my opponent kindly waiting for me to finish whatever I was doing. His smile faltered as I equipped five different swords in a flash of light. I drew a sword in my right hand and it began to glow with a dark green light. I rocketed toward the man at a speed faster than should be possible as I spoke two words.

"Infinite Combination."

* * *

Sinon's POV

The man smiled at me mockingly, despite the fact that I had my dagger at his neck, half a moment from permanently removing him from this world. "Hahaha, what's a good girl like you doing in a place like this? Someone who's never killed has no place in this world." I flinched as he said those words, recoiling slightly. But quickly I caught myself and resumed the pressure on his neck with the dagger.

"Oho, judging by your reaction, you have killed before, and now you're afraid of it, hahahaha… HAHAHAHAHA! I can't understand someone like you, I thought most people would be addicted to it once they got a taste." I felt rage and disgust well up in me, along with a strange, almost unidentifiable emotion; one that I hadn't felt in over a year. Fear?

"Only a psychopath like you would enjoy killing, to most people it's the greatest taboo, even in this hellish world." the mocking smile remained on the man's face, as if daring me to violate the greatest taboo. '_Killing an evildoer means saving 100 innocents.' _I recalled the pained look in the multicolored eyes of the girl when she had spoken those words to me so long ago.

I tilted my head to the side slightly, letting the disgusting projectile fly past my head as the man in front of me spat at me. "You're WEAK! A person like you has no place in this world, you should just die and let the strong…

Even though I could tell by his expression that he was still speaking with the same animated ferocity, his voice seemed to fade into the background as a scene that I'd never seen came into my head.

_A strange world. A world of iron and oil where firearms reigned supreme. A single figure stood out; a figure who wielded a sword._

_A girl. No, a boy. A boy with long hair and surprisingly girlish features. Someone that almost resemble the black swordsman that she knew so well._

_The boy who resembled the black swordsman held a cyan-haired girl in his arms. The scene that would have resembled something from a romance novel was broken by the fact that he was holding a sword, no, a lightsaber, to the girl's neck._

I was suddenly torn from the scene and back to reality by a splitting headache. However, words poured into my head as if I was remembering some long forgotten memory.

'_If that __ĐȺǥǥɆɍ could also kill a player in the real world, and if you didn't ȺŧŧȺȻK them, you or someone you loved would be killed… Could you still ρ__પ__ɭɭ Շɦ__ﻉ __Շɼ__ٱﻭﻭﻉ__ɼ?' _A strange mechanical voice overwrote certain parts of the memory. Memory? Why did I think it was a memory?

But at this point I knew what I had to do.

I pulled the trigger.

* * *

Isuca POV

"Hah." I gave a mocking laugh. "The 14th seat of the illustrious ******** ** ******** was selected from a player?" The familiar man standing in front of the 13 figures smirked at me, a gaze of fire meeting a stare of steel.

"******, you don't deserve to live after betraying us like this. Your prev-" I was cut off by a loud laugh "AHAHAH! Is it wrong to seek strength? Isn't that what you've done, ****** ******** ** ********?"

"I sought strength, but not in the way you did. My strength is my own, not borrowed from an impostor. Prepare yourself, ******. I drew back the empty string of the pitch black bow in my hands as I spoke four words.

"Life Break: Concept Sever."

* * *

**Note: For anyone curious about what's going to happen to this fic in the future, it'll probably be at least a week until the next release. Currently I'm adjusting to a new learning method IRL in the year break I'm taking between highschool and college, along with a war in an online game I play. Although that will be taking up a lot of my time until the end of this month, it means that I'll be more free to work on this project in the future.**

**In addition, I'm going to be taking some writing courses, so hopefully the quality of my writing, story, and storytelling will improve as I go! This is a pretty big project that I'm expecting (and hoping) to exceed 200k words by the time it's completed.**

**This is going to be a long journey and I'm looking forward to traveling it with all of you ;)**

**I'd like to thank Themailman'sdog for leaving a review that helped me flesh out some ideas I had.**

**And BorderLand, I'd love to hear your ideas about Isuca, for the reasons of seeing how good of a job I did at dropping hints on her backstory and so that I might get some ideas on how to flesh out her character more ;)**

**Thanks for reading and sorry that there haven't been any releases lately! Hope to see all of you next chapter!**


	12. Chapter 11

**Note: Dang, sorry for the really long gap between releases! the good news is that I have a lot of the plot development and future chapters sorted out, so releases should actually be reasonably frequent. There are going to be a lot of things in the note at the end explaining my inspiration and crediting some people.**

* * *

Aincrad Floor 2 Fields

My eternally messy dark hair blew against my face as the pair that Isuca had enigmatically referred to as the Midnight Sun ran across the flat plains of the second floor, heading directly toward an unremarkable mountain barely visible in the distance. "Hah, hahhh… I swear this mountain is farther away than it was in the beta." Sinon panted as we took a brief rest to let our ingame and mental stamina recover.

I lightly rapped my knuckles on the girl's head. "That's because it is. The full release is 1.5 times larger than the beta." she ducked backwards out of the way of my offense and pouted at my teasing tone. "I knew that, I was just checking to see if you did." I laughed at the childish response of my companion and patted her head, a gesture I could tell she enjoyed despite how much she protested whenever I did it.

The reason we were taking a "break" from grinding by doing this nice cross-country run was to get a skill that was core to both Sinon and me during the beta: Extra skill [Martial Arts]. Although few people knew it, this quest was the source of Argo's trademark whiskers. During the beta she'd been so pissed at this quest for giving her those permanent lines on her face, but over time she grew to like them. Although Sinon and I would remind her teasingly about the time she committed suicide in the beta to see if the whiskers would disappear when she respawned.

As the sun began to dip behind the horizon, we finally reached our destination. A small, ancient looking dojo stood in front of us. It seemed deserted, but we knew that inside there was an old sensei, sitting seiza in front of a single burning candle.

Sinon and I entered, the scene inside being the exact same as we both remembered from the beta. We both bowed upon seeing him, but he didn't even open his eyes to acknowledge our entrance. He he almost seemed to focus on us, still not opening his eyes. "Do you come seekin-" his speech was suddenly cut of by a sound almost like static and his body twisting and twitching weirdly. It was barely within the range of what the human body allowed, but both of us involuntarily stepped backward at the disturbing sight.

A moment later, as if nothing had happened, he started speaking again with the same serene expression. "Do you come seeking the path of the heavens?" Sinon and I exchanged a puzzled glance at the deviation from the speech he had in the beta. Instead of giving the reply that, in the beta, had been the trigger to receive the martial arts quest, I chose my words to match what the NPC had said.

"I come seeking the knowledge of the world around me and of the power within me." Sinon looked at me oddly, intrigued by my strange response. "Ahaa. It's relieving to come across someone with the mark of a true martial artist." The man opened his eyes and the back of my neck prickled as his gaze bore into me. The prickling grew even more intense as I realized something. The man was blind.

I simultaneously noticed a few things. He was blind yet I could feel his gaze on me, this man was certainly not the same person who was the sensei in the beta, and he had a strange, slightly orange aura around him. But most importantly, there was a hint of killing aura in the air. I hadn't noticed it when we walked in because it wasn't directed at anyone, but it was certainly faint. My heart started to beat harder as it finally registered. '_Killing aura and killing intent aren't something that should exist in this game, let alone something that an NPC should be able to emanate. It doesn't even make sense that a simple NPC should be able to imitate an aura that only surrounds powerful killers.'_

The NPC smiled lightly, perceiving that I had felt the killing aura he was emitting. "Interesting, not only do you have the mark of a martial artist, but you also have the eyes and heart of one. I'd be willing to bet-" "shut up." before he could say another word, I cut him off with a voice sharper than a knife. Sinon unconsciously stepped back a step from me as I glared murderously at the NPC, my black eyes changing from calm pools to terrifying abysses.

The NPC simply smiled, cutting off his dialogue. I calmed down slightly, enough to spot the elephant in the room. "You, you're no simple NPC, are you?" the old man smiled at my comment and nodded. "As you say, indeed I'm no normal Non-Player Character. But then again, what exactly constitutes a player?"

Sinon looked confused, but I couldn't help a sharp intake of breath at his words. He smiled again at my reaction before continuing. "You've met someone similar to me, correct?" my eyes narrowed as I tried to figure out what he was talking about. "Wait, you mean that boss? The 33rd floor boss?" the old sensei gave no response to that, but the enigmatic smile on his face remained.

After a small gap of time, the old man sighed before responding. "Of course, I can't come close to comparing to any of the children of Cardinal, even the 13th." A sad look appeared on his face, the look of a man who had fought through hell, had lost all worth living for, yet was somehow still alive. I was against struck by the fact that this man was an NPC.

'_Is it possible that there's more to this world than we thought?' _My mind went back to the words that Kayaba Akihiko spoke during the release. "I hope you all will be able to learn what I've created this world to teach you, a concept that few in the real world ever have the pleasure to comprehend." '_Damn Kayaba, what is your purpose of creating this world? Why are there NPCs that act more alive than the majority of people in the outside world?'_

The NPC(?) continued in a hushed voice, interrupting my musing. "I'm the last remaining knight of my Mistress. Alongside her we fought the Ascended, driving them away from the Castle. We tore the false gods down from their thrones, taking revenge against the ones who ravaged the home of our Mistress. The children of Cardinal are nothing compared to the might of her loyal knights at their height! Yet they dishonor the last of them by placing him at such a low location in this god-forsaken castle!"

Both Sinon and I were stunned by his claims. Sinon and I both spoke at the same time, starting to ask questions, but the man spoke over us. "Conquerors, ones ascending this cursed castle in the sky, with my authority as the last of _Her _knights, I grant you a trial." he paused for a moment and pulled a rock the size of a man's head out of nowhere before addressing Sinon.

"Young lady, if you can break this rock with nothing but your own physical strength, I will grant you the power that you came here seeking." Sinon bowed to him, accepting the rock before stepping back. He then turned to me, but his next words were beyond my imagination.

"Young man, ye with the mark of an artist, I wish to offer you a test. If you are able to defeat me with nothing but the strength of your body, I will pass to you the legacy of the Crusaders." I was taken aback by this offer, having seen nothing like this in the beta. However, within a moment I was able to suppress my astonishment, and accepted his offer.

I readied myself, unequipping my gear and dropping into an all too familiar stance. The man stood up and closed his eyes, merely standing there. I stood my ground, waiting for him to approach.

All stray thoughts fled from my mind as I stood there, staring at my opponent. By the aura he was emitting, I knew this was an opponent that I couldn't afford to underestimate, especially since my life was on the line. '_Heh, it's not like this is the first combat I've fought that my life is on the line, and I'm sure it won't be the last.'_

After nearly a minute of standing there, trying to find an opening, my opponent finally made a move, launching himself at me with a speed far faster than anyone I had ever encountered, in the game or in real life. I gritted my teeth and swayed to the side, deflecting his punch past me.

Of all the bizarre things about this entire chain of events, a single one struck me as by far the most odd. '_Just how are his movements so precise when he's blind? No way the system would give him some cheat ability. There has to be something he's using!' _

We exchanged a few more blows, neither of us gaining an advantage, but I still was unable to figure out how he was "seeing". I was forced to retreat a few paces as he suddenly changed up his fighting style, favoring heavy kicks and rapid punches instead of his previous rapid but comparatively weak attacks.

A few seconds after I adjusted to his new fighting style, he changed his style again, forcing me even farther back. However, I was able to use this rapid changing of styles to my advantage. To my opponent's obvious surprise, I stepped back out of his range and began to circle around his left, staying out of his attack range as I did so.

'_Crap!' _just as I thought I had him where I wanted him, he swapped to a style of martial arts I had never seen in my entire life. '_Crap, is it even possible for a game to come up with a new style of martial arts!? This is totally unfair!' _He lunged forward with an odd, shuffling gait, one that made it nearly impossible to gauge his movement speed, causing my timing to be off.

He suddenly disappeared for a tenth of a second, but it was enough to entirely destroy my already wavering concentration. His fist suddenly appeared in front of my face, not giving me any time to dodge. But, strangely enough, he hesitated for a moment, giving me enough time to dodge his fatal attack by a hairsbreadth.

"Why?" I asked the obvious question, but the old NPC didn't respond, instead renewing his assault after giving me just barely enough time to recover. After another brief exchange I noticed a peculiar expression on his face, one that was benevolent, but also somehow hopeful. At this sight, it was as if a lightbulb went on in my head and I realized what the true purpose of this fight was.

"Kirito!" a panicked call came from the girl watching on the sidelines as I slowed my steps down, nearly losing my life on several occasions. Sadly, even though I knew my life wasn't in any danger at the moment, I still was unable to spare the concentration to respond.

The last of the Crusaders rushed at me again, this time swaying oddly so his figure blurred slightly, occasionally leaving an afterimage. Something clicked in my brain at the sight, the memory of his movements combined with my knowledge of martial arts and the Cardinal system to form an ability I never would have thought would be possible even in my wildest dreams.

* * *

**Note: Thanks for sticking with the story for this long! I know the beginning was really slow, and my writing is pretty crappy, but the story will continue to improve, as will my writing (hopefully).**

**First off, I'd like to credit the authors of other Kirinon fics on this site, as I've read most of them and have taken tiny aspects from quite a few of them. Second, I'd like to credit my favorite music artist, Aviators. I've taken a lot of inspiration for events, groups, and characters from his songs. I'd absolutely recommend looking him up! and who knows, maybe you'll get hints about where this story is going ;)**

**Finally i'd just like to say that I'm taking a lot of elements from various Korean and Chinese novels. Because let's be honest, the Japanese _really _don't know how to write virtual reality gaming fiction. If you enjoy the virtual reality side of SAO, I'd recommend novels such as Overgeared, The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, or Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World. These are all novels I've gotten a lot of inspiration from, so anyone familiar with those novels will probably be seeing elements of each of those and other stories in this fanfic.**

**I'm going to aim for a more realistic goal of 1-2 chapters per week, and I hope you enjoy it! I'm also working on a few more stories, some of which might go up on scribblehub, so (if allows it) I'll post links to those along with this story.**

**If anyone has questions, suggestions, complaints, ideas, or any input of any sort, I'd be extremely grateful if you left me a review or shot me a pm!**


	13. Chapter 12

Aincrad Floor 2 Fields

I could feel my body. It felt like a trillion nerve endings had just come to life, elevating my kinesthesia to a level that could only be termed as absurd. It was an excessively strange feeling, but not a feeling one would think particularly impressive.

But I knew exactly where I was, and I could see all his movements. To put it bluntly, I was now able to differentiate between an attack that would hit me, and an attack that would miss me by a tenth of a millimeter.

As I focused on the strange feeling, my mind started to fog over. It felt like the world was slowing down and fading. Everything but my opponent blurred and faded into the background as I focused the hardest I had in the past 3 years.

Shift my center of gravity to the left four inches and take half a step back.

Tilt my head one and a quarter inches to right.

Jump to avoid the low kick.

Duck my head by 3 inches and take a step to the right.

Blackness surrounded me. All I could sense was the old man in front of me.

I had to fight.

I had to win.

For the first time in my life, I enjoyed the thrill of fighting with my life on the line. Yes I would fail the quest if my HP bar dropped to the yellow, but that did not by any means mean that my life was safe.

In quests, or even duel mode, if damage greater than the total of a player's HP was taken, they would zero out regardless of the limitations of the quest/duel. The only exception is a duel in a safe zone. Safe zones were the only absolute in this game. It was entirely impossible to die in a safe zone, even if you tried your best.

Of all weapons, fists dealt the lowest damage possible, seeing as they barely even qualified as a weapon. The weapons of martial artists were either claws (think wolverine), armblades, or similar weapons. Fists were only used in training and sparring.

So why did I think my life was at risk in this duel?

Nothing but pure instinct.

There was no logic to it, I just instinctively knew that as soon as one of his blows connected with me, my HP bar would zero out.

And I would die.

I had no hope of winning, all I thought of was surviving. I was able to dodge each blow by a hairsbreadth, but all my concentration was dedicated to keeping myself alive. There was never a single opening in which to counter.

I opened my eyes wider, trying to catch every single movement. But finally, the moment that I knew would come, came. I barely managed to catch his movements with my eyes, but my body wasn't able to react fast enough. Three attacks came at me with terrifying speed, cutting off my paths of retreat and forcing me to block one.

"GAH!"

A blinding pain shot from my wrist to my brain, breaking my trance as I felt my right hand bend in a direction no one's hand ever should bend.

[Critical damage taken! Right wrist status: Broken. 80% decrease in movement of the body part.]

Even though I redirected his strike, just the force from redirecting had been enough to at least dislocate my wrist, possibly breaking several bones in my wrist and hand. Notifications popped up in my field of vision, but I ignored them, knowing they were simply stating what I could already feel.

Although my right hand was next to useless, the man didn't let up, confirming my thoughts that him holding back earlier was just a one time thing.

I realized it a while back. He was teaching me in this fight. The inheritance of his skill was this fight itself, not a reward if I win this fight.

I learned his skill. I was using it to fight him, but I was still unable to beat him. I was unable to reach his standards.

I knew.

I knew that if I couldn't beat him after learning his skill, he'd have no need for me, and he'd kill me.

I knew it. I could physically feel his will to kill me, the so-called "killing intent". This wasn't something that should show up in any game, but anyone who still said SAO was just a game would be labeled as either an idiot or a raving lunatic.

Suddenly, the man came to a dead stop. He stood there silent for a few moments and allowed my breathing to stabilize.

"You're not responding as you should. I can tell you can't pull out your full power. After all, you're not a martial artist, are you."

"No, I'm not. But this is a test of martial arts so I can't say anything, even if I'm outside of my area of expertise. I knew what I was getting into when I accepted the quest."

The old man just smiled at my words and walked over to a corner of the room. "First orbit 50cm, second orbit 130cm. Am I correct?"

My eyes widened at the man's words. From a spar of martial arts, he had somehow managed to figure out the orbits, or effective ranges of my sword style. My already wide eyes widened even farther as i unsheathed the object he threw me. A short katana, just barely over 60 cm long, simple but well made. I lowered the sheath to my left side, and it fastened itself there with a soft *shhng* noise.

Two popups came in rapid succession, so fast I was barely able to read them.

[Error: unable to equip item in current zone]

[Overwrite: item equip request accepted by quest administrator]

I looked at him curiously as he dropped into a fighting stance.

"Aren't you going to use a sword?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Unlike you, this old man is a martial artist. Using a blade would limit my ability, rather than bring it out. But, that isn't to say I won't use a weapon."

He deftly slipped on gloves made from some unknown material before lunging at me, as if to take my life.

I lowered my body, taking an entirely different stance than I had previously. I stepped into the oncoming attack with my right leg while sliding my left behind me. Then, without the telltale light that preceded a sword skill, my figure suddenly transformed into a blur. The strange thing was, with how fast I was moving at that moment, there was no sound at all.

That is, until the blade that had invisibly left its sheath collided with the old man's fist.

There was a loud crash when the two objects met, proving that his glove was in no way less durable than my sword. The shock from the impact should have broken my arm, but instead of trying to absorb the shock, I leveraged it.

Using the momentum from my strike, I did a full 360 degree spin faster than you could blink.

"Guh!"

For the first time, the old man gave a reaction. My blade had cut into him as I spun past him. The cut was barely an inch deep and nowhere fatal, but it showed that something had changed.

I finally managed to land a strike.

I couldn't help a small smirk from forming on my face as I muttered to myself, "Heh, never thought I'd actually be thankful for this skill."

I loosely held the short katana by my side and closed my eyes. "Thanks for this opportunity, Old man."

"Oh?" he raised his eyebrows at my words, "So you really did realize. I hope you'll give me a better performance now that you have a blade, swordsman. "

For the third and last time, the battle began again.

But this time, it hadn't even begun before it had ended.

[Quest Completed!]

A screen appeared in front of me, but I dismissed it without even looking at it.

I glanced over at Sinon, who was standing there with a terrified look on her face, an expression that quickly morphed into one of confusion as she checked my HP bar and realized it hadn't budged a centimeter.

I smiled at her. Of course, her worry was totally understandable. From her perspective, it looked like his fist had gone through my stomach while my attack had entirely missed. But this couldn't have been further from what actually happened. The proof was that my HP bar was untouched, while the old NPC had a red line across his throat and his HP bar had dropped into the red.

"Interesting… A style of martial arts that is pure as the sun, yet a style of swordsmanship that utilizes the shadows. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't pick someone as sneaky as you to inherit my skills, but these circumstances are far from normal."

He stepped forward and placed his hand on my head, and simply spoke two words.

"Total Transfer"

I almost lost my balance and fell over as I was struck by a strange feeling, a feeling similar to a violent bout of seasickness. This quickly turned into an intense headache, the pain forcing my eyes shut and almost causing my knees to buckle.

"Gah! What the-!?"

But suddenly all pain fled my mind as I heard a shocked yelp come from Sinon. I managed to open my eyes, and my heart skipped a beat as a crimson cloak entered my vision. A small figure, one barely 150 cm tall, stood in front of me.

The figure's face was entirely obscured. I couldn't even tell the gender. But I recognized that cloak…

"A GM…" In a hushed voice, Sinon murmured the words that were at the forefront of my mind.

Wordlessly, the figure stepped forward and raised its arm. Although the sight of a short person in a robe at least 5 sizes too large for them would be funny in most circumstances, laughing was the thing that was furthest from my mind at this moment.

A burning flame leapt from from the upraised hand.

"Urgh!"

As if in response to the flame, my headache intensified many times over.

"Damnit! Just a little..!"

The old man in front of me spoke in a voice that expressed more emotion than I've heard since getting trapped in this death game.

The flames emerging from the hand formed a column before dispersing into the surroundings, leaving nothing but a red sword the color of flames in their place.

"Delete."

A neutral, monotone voice came from the depths of the cloak as the sword was swung down.

"D̶̹̣̲̬̫͂̐̏̃̽̍̽̈́͜a̴̩̮̠͕̩̞̬̘̋̔̆͠ḿ̴̫̣̑͠ͅň̷͍̳̮̭̳̖̕ ̴͓̲̠́̈́̕ÿ̵͉̥͍͉̥͈̆̓ŏ̸̤͓̘̥̹̝̫͆͋̕͜ṳ̴̀͌͝ ̴̧̝̜̭̀͂͂̃̔͊́͝c̶͕̣̝̔̈́̂̊̂̇͠ā̸̤̤̜̭̰̋͒.̶̛̞͊̄.̶̨̪͓̲͕̲̣̯̯̋̿̄̀̓̐͗̀̕"

Flames erupted from the blade, forming something like dozens of arms or tentacles that wrapped around the old man in front of me. As the flames started to consume him, I was surprised. Not by the expression of pure hatred on his face, but by the sense of loss I could feel from him. As he disintegrated into particles that looked oddly like ashes, I faintly heard a garbled voice speak. One so filled with resentment and hatred that even I shivered slightly.

The strange thing was, even though flames consumed the hand that rested on my head, I couldn't feel the slightest heat. The only thing I could feel was the hand slowly disintegrating.

"Purge complete."

I stood there frozen as the same neutral voice spoke two more words before dissolving into a liquid that looked disturbingly like blood; the same way that Kayaba had disappeared after he finished with his speech in the so called "Tutorial".

"K-Kirito?" I heard a worried voice call to me, and quiet footsteps start to run towards me.

I raised my hand in response to the girl. "Don't worry, I'm fine."

"Alri-"

Her response was cut off by a strange noise. Both of us reflexively jumped, still on edge from the strange series of events that had just occurred.

In front of me, an unfamiliar notification window popped up.

[Transfer interrupted. Complete information salvaged. Incomplete information deleted.]

The text in the window was certainly something I'd never seen before, but the strangest thing was the window itself. Unlike the usual light blue and white windows I was used to, this window was red and gold, the color of a burning blaze.

[Skills updated. Check skill list for more information.]

I had a strange feeling of vertigo the second the notification window popped up, but it disappeared almost as soon as it begun, so i brushed it off and followed the instructions of the popup window.

"What the?"

I scrolled down and I saw 3 extremely out of place skills. ?, ?, and ?.

I shook my head to clear it and closed my skills window, choosing to ignore the weird skills with no description. I involuntarily shuddered as I unconsciously glanced at the spot where the GM had appeared and erased the existence of an obviously unique NPC.

I grabbed Sinon's hand and started walking towards the exit. "Come on Sinon, we have to get out of here."

"But what was that? Can't we look around and try to figure out what was happening?"

I shook my head with a dark expression on my face. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious, but we're way out of our depths here. Remember what Kayaba said back in his so called 'Tutorial'? 'I hope you all will be able to learn what I've created this world to teach you, a concept that few in the real world ever have the pleasure to comprehend.' It was obvious from that moment that SAO wasn't anything close to a simple game."

I recalled the sight of the NPC, no, the man, being not just killed, but entirely erased from existence. That was the fate that was in store for many of the players here. Not a fight to the death where strength could save their life, not a gamble with their life on the line, but a senseless death where a person could be just deleted on a whim.

"I think I'm starting to realize what Kayaba wanted us to learn."

Sinon gazed calmly at me. I could feel the trust she had in me, and it just made the weight of my realizations even heavier.

'_You want to show me hell, Kayaba? What a pity. I've already seen it.'_

"Don't worry, whatever this world throws at us, we'll break through it. I plan on getting out of here alive, you know. And of course I plan on getting you out of here alive, too."

* * *

**Author's note: **Hello again peeps! sorry that it's been months since my last release, but I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. I've been looking back through the past chapters and I realized something. Holy crap I am a bad writer. So sorry to anyone who enjoys this fic, i kinda sorta hate it lol. **However, this does not mean i'm dropping this.**I really like the concept for this story, so i'm going to be rewriting it from the beginning. I'll aim for a chapter of at least 5,000 words every 2 weeks, but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading, hope to see you in the rewrite!


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